


and when the sun comes (to put me to sleep)

by hellhoundsprey



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: 'verse' is short for 'versatile' which means the character both bottoms AND tops in this fic, Ableism, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Bad Ending, Bottom Jensen Ackles, Child Neglect, Disabled Character, Drug Addiction, Ephebophilia, HIV/AIDS Crisis, Humiliation, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Manipulation, Military Backstory, Mind Control, Multi, Pedophilia, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Slurs, Stockholm Syndrome, Top Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Underage Rape/Non-con, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Verse Jared, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:47:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22098148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey
Summary: It’s Jensen’s fifth summer out here, and Jared’s first. It’s 1996.
Relationships: Jeffrey Dean Morgan/Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles/Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jensen Ackles/Jeffrey Dean Morgan/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 44
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please check the tags before proceeding. **I chose not to tag everything concerning the ending** to avoid spoiling the entire story from the get-go. Reader discretion is advised.
> 
> Five fridays, five chapters. Enjoy!

Clyde and Jensen raise their heads at the exact same time, the exact same speed—one of those incidental Perfect Moments Jeff can’t and won’t share with anyone, ever.

Jeff sets the hammer down without much of a hurry.

Jensen squints and maybe there’s dust clouding on the horizon already. Jeff blinks to the sky. Must be around three.

“Keep going.”

“Who’s that?”

Raised finger, “Keep going,” and Jeff leaves him behind.

He’s at the front gate by the time a motorcycle comes to a halt just outside of it. The driver removes their helmet before climbing off the vehicle; the passenger in the back prefers it the other way around.

“Mr. Morgan?”

“At your service.”

“Think you spoke to our mom, on the phone.”

“The Padalecki boys.” Jeff feels his upper lip peeling back over his teeth. “Yeah, yeah. You Jared then?”

“Jeff,” the driver says, reaches a gloved hand for Jeff’s bare one, and Jeff barks a laugh as he shakes it. “Only here to drop him off. You have our number if anything happens?”

“Of course.”

Padalecki-Jeff’s hand still in his own, Morgan-Jeff has another slow intake of the kid shouldering a duffle bag half his size, with a face shouting how much he’d love to be anywhere but here.

He won’t look up from his own feet, but Jeff grants him a smile nevertheless. “Pretty sure we got this. Right, Jay-bird?”

The kid snorts, eyes rolling.

“Jared!”

“What!”

Their conversation continues silently. Padalecki-Jeff ends with flared nostrils, tight mouth. Throws an apologetic look at Morgan-Jeff. “Well, good luck.”

“I’ll do my best,” smiles Jeff.

The brothers don’t say their goodbyes. Kid’s still not looking up from the ground. The bike drives off and Jeff waves, rakes his hair back over his head and wipes the now-greasy-sweaty palm on his jeans. Reaches out for a handshake he knows he won’t get, but it’s never hurt to have principles.

“Welcome to Morgan’s Fun Vacation Fun Camp. Yup, twice the fun.”

Nothing. Well, Jeff’s used to that. He draws his hand back and shrugs, drawls, “Alright,” as he sways with his chuckle, turns and nods towards the house. He already knows how this will go eventually, anyway. “I’ll show you where to drop off your shit and then you’re gonna help us with the fence.”

Too-slow drag of feet, hesitant, “Can’t I like, rest? It’s been a five-hour drive, man.”

“Oh, really? Nobody fucking cares. Move.”

Almost inside the house, in the corner of Jeff’s vision, Jensen is taking off on Clyde.

Fantastic.

“Told your mama for you to bring a decent pair of boots. Put those on.”

“Ugh, _now_?”

Screen-door, lingering scent of coffee two hours ago, Jeffrey turns on his heels, both good and bad hand stemming into the doorframe so he can look that much taller against five feet something of teenage skin-and-bones. Can catch those flitter-fleeing eyes right before they have a chance to drift off another goddamn time.

Hums, slowly, “Did I ask you a question?”

No answer but a sharp (yet threat-less) glare.

Jared’s got beauty-mark-moles on his baby face, sweat running like a faucet. Offers one empty, “Sorry,” without even being here. Jeff has beaten prettier ones for less.

But, later. “Boots. Meet me at the fence.”

He leaves him with that. No sign of Jensen.

Jeff snorts, spits, grabs one of the Stetsons from the coat hanger. He’s counted to eight minutes when Jared finally emerges the house, another two until he joins Jeff over at the fence. Stands there, stares. Unwilling. Fascinated. Both.

“Take a picture, it’ll last you longer.”

“Sorry.”

“If you say sorry one more goddamn time, I’ll bash your pretty head in with this.” Jeff nods to the sledgehammer JR left behind. “Now get to work.”

Jeff’s peripheral tells the tale of Unnerved Jared, underestimating the weight of the tool and how he turns even more tight-lipped. In his defense: he _does_ pick up the hammer, waddles stupid handling the weight of it. Jeff instructs. The result is not perfect but two of the poles do make it perpendicular.

Kid seems fine; bird-chest heaving and whatever’s twisting his panties is still twisting, but that’s none of Jeff’s concern. If he can stand, he can work.

“You keep that up. I’ll get the connectors.”

Kid’s trying. Long stringy arms and no finesse, no experience with manual labor and how to ration muscle strength. Jeff gives him six. Jared tosses the hammer after four.

Jared says nothing, scarlet-red face, hair sweat-glued to his skull. He’s panting through his nose and stares at the dirt.

“That’s it? Already?”

Jeff gets the shortest death glare, flaring nostrils and a once-again in motion Jared. Jeff laughs, props himself up against the fence and lights himself a cigarette. He gestures vaguely into Jared’s direction. “Hey now, don’t get sloppy.”

The glare lasts longer now, and Jeff meets it with a smile on his face.

Another four poles later, Jeff vanishes into the house. Jared has planted his ass on the ground when he returns and gives major heart-eyes to the thermos and muffins Jeff is carrying. He doesn’t reach out too far to meet Jeff’s hand but stuffs his face immediately once he can.

Jeff pours coffee for two. Jared doesn’t thank him.

“They don’t feed you at home?”

Stink-eye, full time. Jared explains, “I’m _growing_ ,” grimaces at the tar-black coffee but sips nevertheless, even if reluctantly.

Jeff examines the sky, the horizon. “It’s almost five now. Let’s finish this up. I’ll give you a full tour after dinner.”

Jared says, “Yay,” with as little enthusiasm as he can drop his voice to.

He’s alright. Or maybe he’s just stalling. Doesn’t seem like the runaway type though. Or, doesn’t look dumb enough to try to run after he’s been driven here, through the desert, for hours.

Jared is openly cradling his blistered hands. Just stands there, and gawps at them. Helpless like a toddler.

“Oh, does it hurt? Lemme see.”

Jeff goes to grab Jared’s outreached-for-adult-inspection hand with his right, and Jared pulls his hands back in horror.

“Ah, yes. A typical case of bitch ass baby.” Jeff smiles and ignores how Jared’s bucking his shoulder to keep him from patting it. “Let’s grab our shit. I’m starving.”

The house is waiting, silently, unmoving.

Jared gets sent to the bathroom to sanitize his wounds. Jeff whips up dinner. Not spectacular, but it will do. Jared wrinkles his nose when he sits down to dry bread with cheese and sliced smoked sausages. After a good three weeks of JR’s cooking, all day, every day, yeah, this is anticlimactic for Jeff as well. But, hell, he knew he’d have to pay somewhat of a price.

Jeff honest to God feels his face derailing with Jared’s reproachful, “I’m lactose intolerant.”

He touches his good hand to his heart. Sighs, loudly, and rolls his eyes heavenward.

“God. Damn. There goes my five-star review.”

Sitting down, he has to slap at Jared’s hand. Reaches out for it with his right then and Jared stares at it until Jeff (admittedly quickly) loses his patience and grabs him. Feels the pull, the urge to escape. It makes him only squeeze tighter.

“Dear God,” he begins, head tilting back and healthy palm turned upwards, “bless this simple meal and the even simpler minds feasting off it. And excuse him, he’s new. And bless our good JR, wherever the fuck he might be right now with _my_ horse. And please bring him back safely because if I have to go look for him imma be really, really pissed, and we all know that’d do my health no good at all. Last but not least—” he jostles Jared’s arm with his grip on his hand “—give good Jared here your guidance in learning the words ‘thank you’. Amen.”

Nothing from Jared. Another yank then, “Amen.”

“ _Now_ you may eat.”

And Jared does. Silently, fast, without chewing much.

~

“Bathroom. My room. Your room. You’re sharing with JR.”

Offended face, a deeper frown then upon sticking his head into the room. “That’s way too small for two people. And there’s only _one_ bed.”

“It’s a bunk bed. With an imaginary bottom bunk.”

“So, the floor.”

“Yep.”

“I’m supposed to sleep on the floor. For six weeks.”

“Depends on what you and JR agree on. But, yeah. You’ll probably get the floor.”

Jared made it to the middle of the room and squints through the darkness. Jeff doesn’t care if he can see him checking him out head to toe.

“Are you insane or something?”

Jeff shrugs, leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed. “Leave your shit here. I’ll show you ’round the outsides real quick before lights out.”

Luggage gets thrown across the room with a light hint of This Isn’t Over. Jared keeps shuffling along though, probably too tired to do much more, and that’s all Jeff needs of him.

“Toolshed. Hay and supply barn. Horse barn.” An experimental shake on the doors tells Jeff they’re still unlocked. It’s already dark out—JR won’t come back until tomorrow.

Jeff goes through the keys, flashlight between his teeth. “Before bed, you make sure every door is locked. The keys _always_ go back into my hands.” Jeff locks the front door. “The barns have two exits each, back and front. Always check both.” They circle to the back. Jeff hands the keys to the kid. Jared makes sure to take as much time as humanly possible. Jeff waits, soothed by the cold of falling night and the goosebumps on Jared’s barely-haired forearms. He finishes up eventually, giving the door a half-hearted yank to prove it’s shut.

Jeff shines the flashlight directly into his eyes and chuckles when Jared uses his arm to shield himself, makes an unnerved noise edging so deliciously close on a ‘daaaad’ moan.

“Being a smartass won’t get you anywhere out here, I’ll tell you that.”

“Whatever.”

Jeff pulls the kid under his arm and walks him back into the house.

~

Jeff wakes to the smell of frying bacon and starts the day with a smile on his face.

The locks on the boys’ room get undone extra loud but Jeff still hollers his wake-up call together with a hefty series of knocks on the door. Having thrown on a fresh set of clothes and after the obligatory morning piss, the world is bright and new.

Stepping into the kitchen, JR completely ignores him, and Jeff can live with that. Starts the coffee, has a first smoke on the porch. Grabs his cup, fills it, takes it with him for another round upstairs.

Surprise—the door has been pulled shut.

“You better not still be in bed, young man.”

No blockage upon opening. Disappointing. Jared, of course, is still in bed, pillow and blanket pulled over his head.

“C’mon, Jay-bird. You don’t want me to ask a third time.”

No movement whatsoever. Jeff sighs, rubs his eyes under his glasses.

“Putting me in a real bad spot here. But okay.”

Turns out the kid’s so light Jeff can toss him to the floor with only one hand. (The good one though, but still.) The thump of Jared hitting the floor sounds just as bony as he looks.

“What the fuck!”

“Told you. Now get ready, if you—”

“Fuck you, you fucking psychopath, you asshole!”

“—want any breakfast at all. Okay? Okay.”

Jeff picks his coffee back up from the nightstand and returns downstairs without looking back.

JR glares at him.

“What? Like you used to be any better.”

JR’s in yesterday’s clothes. Has his arms crossed so tight in front of his chest it looks like he has little girl tits, pouts so hard, so genuinely upset, that Jeff for a second fears they’re actually married and he forgot.

“How long’s he gonna stay?”

Thumping from upstairs. Pipes rushing with water.

“He’s gonna be here all summer, isn’t he.”

“So why’d you ask if you know the answer?”

JR turns towards the door, and Jeff waits it out.

JR trembles with his breath, arms still crossed. Drops his head before he tosses it.

Jeff hears, “Fuck you,” and starts digging into his breakfast.

JR takes a seat eventually. Grabs his coffee just to have something to squeeze his hands around. Keeps glaring at Jeff, and Jeff can’t do much more than shrug.

“You’re disgusting. You know that?”

“Whatever.”

Jared joins them after what Jeff will have to drastically reduce. Stops in his steps when he takes notice of JR, and JR has jolted up and past him before he can drop his mouth open to ask who ‘that’ is. Jeff follows the familiar noise of JR’s boots stomping upstairs, into the room. Wipes his mouth, pushes his empty plate away.

Offers, “My worst nightmare.”

Jared has yet to take a seat by the time JR is back and slams Jared’s bag on top of the table. Some clothes spill out while Jared’s eyes pop wide.

“Hey!”

“Rule number one.”

“ _Hey_!”

JR rips the zipper open completely, then upturns the bag and empties it.

“What the fuck! You can’t just—” Helpless toss of eyes at Jeff, and Jeff wishes he’d be decent enough to not grin right now.

“No weapons, no drugs, no porn.”

Jensen rumbles the words like he’s said them a million times.

JR tosses clothes to the floor until he finds a (admittedly) well-hidden stash of magazines. Him grabbing and unrolling them is what it takes to rip Jared out of his stupor, and JR doesn’t budge a single inch when Jared half-tackles him, just raises his arms so Jared can’t reach his hands.

They’re almost at eye-level, but Jensen is much older, and buffer.

JR’s, “Hands _off_ ,” rolls like thunder and pushes Jared away harder than the shoulder shove.

Jared just stumbles, slowly paling as he has to watch his magazines being inspected, thrown a dirty look at. Has to endure the darling lines of JR’s face crumbling with disgust, the set line of his jaw as he rolls them up anew, stuffs them into the back pockets of his jeans.

“Y-you can’t—those’re mine.”

JR ignores the sad tries and keeps checking for contraband.

Jared spins to face Jeff, to find some sort of help. Helps Jeff to catch the exact moment he understands that what is happening is what is _supposed_ to happen, and, God.

This one’s a crier, isn’t he?

“Okay,” JR decides, “the rest is clear. Pick up your shit, bring it back up. Make my fucking bed. Then come back for breakfast. Two minutes.”

Jared practically scrambles to obey.

Is already upstairs when Jeff tells his JR, “Wow,” and JR just sits to sprawl on his chair and sip his coffee, facing the windows.

~

“Rule number two.”

Jeff, walking up front, chuckles at the sound of fist hitting shoulder, the pained huff it punches out of Jared.

“Don’t fucking stare at his arm. Or his leg. Have some fucking decency, man.”

Bisou might have been gone for some years now but Jeff remembers the comfort of a guard dog all-too-well. Doesn’t need it, God no. But it is comforting.

One of the easier facts about Jared is that he suffers loudly. Moans and grunts and doesn’t shy away from complaining. Ignoring him only helps for as long as Jared realizes they intend on wearing him out. He gets even more persistent then.

“I have asthma,” he wheezes (pathetically). “I need my inhaler. You gotta get me my—inhaler.”

“Weird. Your mom didn’t mention that.”

“You’re lying.”

Jeff puts the sledgehammer down. Turns to face Jared, crumbled in the dirt, chest heaving and hands shaking from exhaustion, and it’s too early for this kinda kiddie shit.

“Sweetheart,” he sighs. Hears JR stopping his efforts on the endearment, and rubs sweat off his forehead. “Do you know what this here is?”

“You’re lying. I have asthma. I’m sick!”

“Did Mommy tell you why she sent you here? I think you know, Jared.”

Jared’s face hardens. The sun must hurt his eyes, but he keeps staring at Jeff.

Mrs. P is a true sweetheart. Probably never had the heart to scold her babies. Never told them they’re the reason Daddy ran away, the reason she’s crying every day and night.

“’Cause you’re a useless piece of shit, Jared. That’s why. The only reason your ass is out here with me instead of locked up in juvie is that your police academy big brother is sucking some real important dicks.”

Jeff leans the hammer onto the newest pole. Peels the pack of smokes from the back of his jeans and lights one, eyes still on Jared, and Jared’s eyes still on him.

“I know everything about you. Everything,” he says. “From your grades to how often you skipped school in the past few years, from the time and date you started walking to that joyride you and your buddies took with your math teach’s car. So, you could say, Jared, that if you had a special mole in a special place, or, let’s say, a deadly disease that would deter you from working on my farm—I would know that. And I don’t. So let’s cut the crap right here, right now. You pick your wimpy ass up off my ground, and you do as I say, because that’s what your momma is putting herself in debt for: you, getting your ass ground out here.”

The boys are quiet. Jeff dwells in that.

Jared eventually gets up on his feet once more, and the only time he speaks for awhile is to ask how to do something right, and Jeff shows him, and it’s good.

JR eventually stalks off, towards the house.

Gritty, “Why can _he_ leave?”

“’Cause he’s getting lunch ready. Now keep working.”

Jared almost slumps over as he eats. His hands look like shit already and he’s not saying it but Jeff can tell in the tremble to them, in the pale shade of his mouth, that he’s close to reaching his limits.

He makes him keep going. Is leaning back against the finished part of the fence, smoking, observing. JR is nearby, busying himself with the horses. Rather than not wanting to watch Jared go through it, he doesn’t want to watch Jeff watching him go through it.

Kid goes from gritted teeth to hollow groans, to heart-break sobs.

Jeff would tease if it wouldn’t ruin the sanctity of the moment.

Jared gets his, “That’s enough,” only after throwing up.

~

Parked on the sofa, Jared looks perfectly miserable. Curled up, shivering, he’s facing the backrest so nobody can see him rubbing away tears.

“You did a good job.”

Jeff rubs a shoulder that curls in-away. Thumbs at an ear, and smiles at the turn-away.

“Rest up for the day. Want some coffee? Water? No? Okay.”

He claps him on the ass just because it’s so very accessible, and laughs on the jolt, the lack of a complaint.

JR is sprawled in the rocking chair on the porch. Gives Jeff who isn’t even looking at him a side-eye.

Jeff lights a smoke that he relishes with all his heart. Sighs, leaning against the railing, and watches the paddock in the distance.

~

Nobody’s waited for Jeff in his bedroom ever since that night a few years back. When JR had come out with the fear of _maybe I’m sick, Jeff. I dunno, I’m scared_.

Jensen Ross smells like soap and shaving cream.

Jeff closes the door behind himself.

“Can I help you?”

JR’s lashes drag lazily. He’s still in his day clothes except for boots and socks. Jeff just came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his hips.

JR speaks very, very quietly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What good would that have been?”

“So, you’re tired of me.”

“I’ve been tired of you since ninety-two but that ain’t stopping you.”

Jensen’s face is unreadable. “No need to be rude.”

“I’ll be as rude as I want and you’d still be kissing my ass.”

Jeff steps in front of his dresser to grab fresh underwear and a tee, puts both on. He unscrews the lid to his arnica cream. JR hugs him from behind as he starts to massage the remnants of his right hand.

Jeff warns, “Jensen,” but JR doesn’t let that stop him from slipping his hand down the front of Jeff’s shorts.

Again, “ _Jensen_ ,” firmer now, and JR is holding him tight like a plea he is too proud to spell out.

Jeff’s elbow connects nice. JR oompfs, stumbles back, holds his stomach and has his eyes turned down, to the floor.

“Cut it out.”

Head bowed, Jensen leaves the room. Jeff hears the front door and groans in frustration. He forces himself to go to sleep. It’s not worth it.

~

Jensen, like any other animal in pain, suffers secretly. Took off with Clyde again, and who is Jeff to stop him? There is still Jared to help him and to keep him company—a new luxury he’s not yet used to, and he hopes he won’t ever be. (Just a shy hope. Jeff Morgan isn’t known for being in luck.)

The kid peels at his hands, kicks useless too-long feet around in the dust. Wears a tee with some band Jeff hasn’t heard of printed on it. Seems brand new.

“Stop that. You’ll get it infected.”

Jared ignores him. Trails slower than he’d have to, and Jeff has to jam the shovel into his chest for him to take hold of it.

He gets rebel eyes. A mouth made for chewing gum and spitting it into people’s faces.

“Is there gonna be breakfast at all?”

“Not if you keep pissing me off. Here. I’ll show you how to clean the boxes, then you do it. Got it? Great.”

“It reeks in here.”

“Well, no shit, kid.”

Short instructions. Even Jared can’t pretend he is incapable of shoveling horse shit from A to B. Jeff watches him braced up against some pillar, partly because his leg isn’t feeling up to the challenge today, partly because he didn’t have his coffee or morning dump yet. Partly because the kid’s tee might be new but lacks in length, especially when he bends over.

“We might have to get them inside tonight,” muses Jeff, smoke pinched into the corner of his mouth. “Storm’s coming.”

Jared ignores him. Winces and grunts under the exercise, and even though he doesn’t complain otherwise, Jeff has a feeling it’s gonna be one long day. Boys like Jared getting quiet never is a good sign.

“Do you like horses, Jared?”

Jared makes sure Jeff can see his eyes half-roll. Tosses the shovel aside and has to put all of his meager weight into getting the wheelbarrow to move. Jeff moves in to help him, elbow him not too gently (gets elbowed back just as hard).

“They’re good animals. Very loyal. Very intelligent.”

Jared grunts, “Great,” just to shut him up.

Breakfast goes over in peace. Jared is dirty to the bone already, hair stringy from sweat and filth. He wolves down tasteless eggs, stale bread, and washes everything down with coffee. Jeff misses having such an appetite.

Back of hand wiped over that face; Jared clears his sinuses, yawns. Jeff watches him looking out of the window, scanning the bit of horizon he can make out from here.

“You know where he’s gone?”

Jeff shrugs. Sips his coffee.

“Is he gonna be back?”

“Probably. Unfortunately.”

Kid’s fumbling with his blisters again. Dirt-rimmed nails, shadow of a peach fuzz mustache. Eyes downcast, like right now, intent on digging down to his own blood, he could break any woman’s heart.

“Is he like me?”

“Pardon?”

“Like me,” Jared says. Pinched-small. So seemingly bored Jeff wants to laugh.

“You mean if he’s another of Santa’s lil helpers?”

Jared shrugs. Falters in his efforts, because he’s managed to pop a large one, obviously didn’t expect the amount of ooze that would entail.

Jeff watches him struggle with the decision to put his mouth on it or wipe it off. “He used to be. Years ago,” he says, smoke half-forgotten between sips of coffee. “Anyway. Don’t fucking bleed all over where we eat, alright? Jesus Christ.”

Clenched jaw, a dozen smokes later, the horizon is a blurry line. No boy on no goddamn horse to be seen. They have to herd the horses in, have to secure the doors, the gates.

Jared is observing him like a hawk. Probably smells fear from ten miles away. Jeff does his best to conceal his limp. The air is dry, it’s windy.

Leave him in the house by himself so he won’t get in your way, or take him with and hope he’ll be of some help at least. Both are shitty options. Time to bite the bullet, huh.

“Take that. And that.”

Jared scowls at the saddle, then at Jeff.

“What are you waiting for?”

“It’s heavy.”

“Stop dicking around. C’mon, we gotta move.”

The kid crosses his arms. Leans against one of the box gates, slowly.

Nods towards the gear. “Why don’t you carry it then? If you need it so badly?”

Jeff says, “Kid,” and stifles a pained sigh. Does his best to sound his worst, push away the shake that comes with this pain. “We don’t have time for this. _Move it_.”

Jared blinks like he can’t even hear him. Blasé face, and this is worse than a sneer, a grin. When they know they don’t even have to laugh at you to ridicule you—and just stare.

They keep it up, both of them. Until Jeff has to move, has to get out of here, or he’ll take it out on the kid. Has to walk off the cramps, stomps to the gear stand and hauls the saddle down, the harness. Grinds, “Fine,” painfully aware that this is about as worse as it could have gone. “So much for your lunch.”

Jared strolls out after him. Satisfaction is beaming off of him, and Jeff isn’t quite sure yet how he’ll get on _any_ of the horses.

Everyone is irritated. They can feel the change in weather, can sense Jeff’s pain, are not familiar with the new kid, and are missing Clyde. And Jensen.

Jeff whistles. Marshal, who has been eyeing him before, dashes off at the sound.

Jeff can hear Jared chuckle.

“If you feel like dinner, I better not hear another peep, Jay-bird.” A faint reply that Jeff doesn’t feel like paying attention to (had already made up his mind anyway) but instead keeps calling, clucking his tongue. Is dragging the prosthesis behind himself at this point, and maybe one of them will have mercy with him. Jeff isn’t one to beg. They know that.

“Good girl, baby. Good girl.” Princess is advancing. Slowly, but curiously. Tilts her head like she is looking for the sugar cubes behind Jeff’s back (goddamn Jen, spoiling ’em all rotten). “You gonna let me, sweetheart? Yeah, that’s a good girl.”

Princess splutters her breath, throws her head back upon getting the saddle heaved onto her back. But she doesn’t run off. Keeps throwing helpless glances around, like any of the others might help her out of this.

Jeff takes a deep breath before he leaps. Swings his right leg over and high, and Princess jolts right then—the sudden increase of weight, the quick movement—but Jeff manages just so to stay on top of her, rucks the reins hard and straightens his spine, locks his knee.

She freaks out just enough for Jeff to get out of breath entirely, just enough not to throw him off.

“You’re fine.” Whistle. “You’re fine, girl. That’s my good girl.”

Quick check. Jeff maneuvers Princess around in generous circles. They don’t feel like cooperating, not a bit. Jeff Morgan can do this on his own, easy; has to do it himself all the time. Has to trust, now, that Jared won’t run off, or do something equally stupid.

Bonnie keeps running off. She knows they’re going in, and that Clyde is out there. It upsets the others. What would usually take maybe fifteen minutes takes an hour today.

“Close the gate! Jared! Fucking close the fucking gate!”

Jeff can see the whirlwind of Jared’s fucking girl-hair, the flashing white in his sneer. How the kid isn’t moving an inch, posed up against the fence so provocative he might as well be some pin-up model.

Duchess escapes, again.

“Fuck! Jesus Mary and Joseph, you fucking little cocksucker!”

Sweat, saliva, burn, always that burn. Like fire and acid and like it’s happening all over, like the wound never closed, like he’s bleeding out into the leg of his jeans.

Down from Princess, Jeff throws the gate closed. Stalks towards Duchess, rope and halter in hand. This is all that counts. Getting them to safety, making sure of that, and then you’re done. You can do this. They need you.

“Sweetheart.” Jared doesn’t matter. JR doesn’t matter. God, if he exposes Clyde to that weather any longer, Jeff will lose his mind. “Sweetheart, shhh. Daddy’s here. C’mon. You like the stable, don’t you? C’mon, sweet girl.”

Duchess rears up.

Jeff’s leg gives in and he falls. She doesn’t stomp him but hearing Jared’s laughing fit is just as fatal.

Shit. Shit. Keep your head clear. Stay focused.

“Babygirl, c’mon. We can do this, alright?”

The mare watches suspiciously how Jeff crawls to the fence and pulls himself up on it. Closes in on him, the shaking mess of a human she’s known for years now. Still so shy, and Jeff doesn’t blame her. Doesn’t blame any of them.

“Hey, there’s a good girl, huh? Hey, it’s alright. It’s okay.”

Duchess bumps her nose under Jeff’s outreached palm. Lets him put the halter on her. Tosses her head warily when he starts directing her but doesn’t pull away.

Jeff isn’t sure how he’s making the maybe fifty feet to the barn. How he channels her through the gaped gate, how he’s not trampled once among all fifteen of them, none of them in their box, but he can’t. This is over.

Jeff locks the front gate. Limps back to the house, where Jared is already idling on the steps, pointedly bored, unimpressed. Jeff pushes past him, ignores him. Gets the keys out, lets himself in and drops himself onto the armchair. Spreads all limbs away from himself, and exhales.

The sole reason he doesn’t start sobbing right here and now is throwing the door closed behind himself.

“Jesus Christ, grandpa!”

Jeff has his eyes closed. Has to concentrate on getting enough air. Just keep breathing. You did it.

“That was awesome! You almost _died_ out there!”

The kid keeps teasing, rambling, chattering, while Jeff is spiraling in and out of consciousness. Doesn’t hear the door but does hear, “What the fuck happened?” like it’s cutting right through him.

Jeff roars not to touch him without opening his eyes; not yet. Can only imagine what he looks like, and makes efforts to sit at least somewhat more upright.

His arm flies up on instinct upon JR touching his thigh, and he thinks he strikes him right across the face. Finally pops his eyes open, a frantic pace of blinks before the room clears, before he raises his hand again because JR is diving back in, kneeling on the floor right in front of him.

A wince for the second backhand.

“Leave me the fuck alone!”

“Are you hurt?”

“I said to fuck off, Ackles!”

“Are you _hurt_ , Jeff? You gotta let me help you.”

Jared is silent, somewhere. Jeff wipes his hand over his face, grinds his teeth.

“Jeff.”

“G-get…”

“You won’t get upstairs with the fucking cane, Jesus fucking Christ, you stubborn bastard.”

Fuck it. Fuck all of it. Let Jared see it. It won’t matter.

JR hoists him up. Throws Jeff’s arm over his shoulders and supports him. Walks him up the stairs, like that, into Jeff’s room. Carefully, he lowers him onto the bed. Jeff groans, once on his back, and only one weak hand goes to shove at JR’s fingers. The other hides his face.

“Where’s…”

“With the others.”

JR yanks his jeans open and down. Pulls Jeff’s boots off his feet so he can take the jeans off completely before he goes to unbuckle the leg.

Jeff wishes he’d closed the door. At least Jared doesn’t seem to have followed them upstairs.

JR’s breathing is slow, controlled. Nasal. He always handles the prosthesis so carefully; Jeff can barely hear it being set down. JR runs his palms up Jeff’s thigh and ignores the hiss it evokes. Stroking turns into kneading, turns into digging. Jeff can hear him huffing through the effort.

Hears, “Did he help you? At all?” and the allegation is right there and enough to make Jeff withhold the obvious answer.

It goes on for a while. Jeff wishes JR wasn’t this used to this. That he wasn’t able to make it better. Waves him off, eventually, and is released immediately. Up on one elbow, Jeff gathers a fistful of his shirt and wipes his face with it. Coughs, wetly, before he dares to look at JR. Kid’s sitting right there, on his bed, looking straight at him. Not an ounce of pity, or concern. More like waiting.

“Do, uh.” Jeff clears his throat, again. “The shed, and the…”

“Already took care of it.”

“Good. Good.” Jeff nods. His eyes slip away, down to JR’s knee.

“You need something? Should I get dinner started?”

“What time is it?”

“Four thirty-ish.”

“Huh. I could eat.”

“’Course.” Waiting, again. Until, “What about him?”

“He gets nothing.”

“’Course.” A nod. A hint of a smile, but very careful. JR’s always resourceful with his joy. Murmurs, “Should I take care’a him?” under his breath, after dropping the act, the little boy twinkle in his eye replaced with the sorta cold Jeff ignores in his very own reflection every day.

Jeff tells him, “Nah,” and reaches for his jeans to raid them for smokes. “I’ll think of something. Tomorrow.” The lighter flickers and Jeff inhales one of his more imminently lethal guilty pleasures.

JR nods. Not another word before he makes himself scarce.

Jeff has an eye on the outside, one ear on the downstairs. Doesn’t hear either of the boys, and that’s for the best. The wind is picking up, rustling windows and doors. He hears it rushing through gaps between boards, howling through the rooms. By the time JR brings him dinner, JR also has to shut the blinds on the windows before they get bashed in.

JR turns the bedside lamp on for Jeff. The least he can do is not offer him to spoon-feed him, and he leaves him in dignity, by himself.


	2. Chapter 2

The night is intermittent—a marble of nightmares, and sounds, and pains. Jeff wakes several times, sitting upright in his bed, bathed in sweat. The bedside lamp stays on through all of it.

The storm is raging outside. Jeff decides since he has to relieve his bladder, he will have to put the leg on, and if he puts the leg on, he can as well check on the animals.

The door to the boys’ room is just ajar. Jeff risks a glance; spots Jared on the floor, rolled into a blanket and snoring peacefully. JR is bundled up on the bed, fetal position, as always. Good.

Flashlight, cane. A rope, just in case anything needs to be secured.

The wind is intense, howling and dashing and eager to throw anything and everything up into the air. The way to the barn is exhausting him, but the tightly shut door of it makes it worth the trouble.

Unlocking, stepping inside, he wonders if he is still dreaming. Checks all the boxes—JR did a good job. The horses are in varying degrees of distress, but nobody is in danger or pain.

Mustard gets a good long petting before Jeff retreats, leaves them be. Climbs back into the house, upstairs, bed.

The next layer of Jeff Morgan’s sleep lasts an hour.

~

Planning takes up five extra minutes in the bathroom. Most of that just additional waiting time for dramatic effect. There will have to be a lot of show to make up for last night; Jeff’s not delusional.

Upon entering the kitchen, Jared doesn’t care to look at him. Got his arms crossed, and idles his play-pretend focus on his knees. JR seated him up against the wall, facing the table, the windows. Jeff takes a seat, head of the table, as always, and doesn’t let the kid out of sight.

JR sets breakfast and coffee in front of him before he sits down to eat. It’s quiet but for the noises of cutlery, of eggs-between-teeth.

Jared blinks. His eyes stay down.

“Maybe I got too soft, forgot what’s important. Been some time since I had one’a you devils all fresh. All that time with Jenny here, playing house—s’not been good on me. But that ends, now.”

No eye contact. JR has slowed down in his munching. Is probably holding back a smile, an orgasm.

Jeff loads his fork and chews with relish. He points the fork at Jared, swirls it around in the air.

“You don’t eat. You don’t piss. You don’t take a shit. Unless I tell you to. Hell, you don’t sit down, you don’t blink your fucking eye.”

A sip of coffee, while Jared’s eyes roll with a sigh.

“Are there any questions? No?” He sets the mug down, stabs another round of eggs. Says, louder, “When I ask you a question, you answer yes sir or no sir. Are there any questions, Jared?”

Jared meets his eyes. His mouth is dropped open but quiet, still. Neither angry nor frightened enough, still.

An unmistakable flinch at the screech of Jeff’s chair over the floor but he clamps that mouth shut, glares harder and steels himself with Jeff walking up to him. Makes it through the stare-down rather okay, doesn’t back down an inch but he’s not the first bitch Morgan had to prove himself to.

Didn’t steel himself for it coming from his right, and not for it to come twice.

Gawps, bewildered, “You can’t—” and Jeff makes the third count.

Kid’s scrambling and Jeff rucks him up by his tee, right hand to that throat and pushing down, forcing Jared’s chin up.

“Oh, I can. Get used to it.” An inch closer to that face, and while Jared’s cheek is rapidly gaining color and volume, his upper lip curls in a snarl. Jeff digs the shreds of his hand harder under that jaw. “You think you’re somehow special?”

Jared’s spit hits him just below his eye.

Once in motion, all the calm falls away from the boy. Screeches, and bites, and flails, but crippled or not, Jeff’s got experience and wrath on his side. Easy as stealing candy from a baby.

Jared’s voice breaks upon getting his arms twisted, some hair ripped from the roots where the two good fingers of Jeff’s right yank on his head.

“I’ll let you in on a secret. The only stupid little cunts I have use for are the stupid little cunts that do as I say. Jensen, in your humble opinion, you reckon Jared here would enjoy the place where I store the stupid little cunts that I don’t have any use for?”

Still at the table, perfectly indifferent. “No, sir.”

“Tell him.”

“Jared, you don’t wanna make him drag you down there.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, sir.”

“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all!”

“Sure you will. Okay, on the count of three, I want you to drop this bullshit attitude of yours, gather your sorry hairless balls off my floor and tell me if you’re excited and ready to go for this beautiful, brand new day! Can I hear a ‘sir, yes, sir’!”

Jeff grinds his knee just a little meaner into the small of Jared’s back with his barks. Smiles down and feels the churn of teeth where he’s still suspending Jared’s skull by his fist in his hair.

Jared hisses, “Sir, yes, sir,” with everything but sincerity. You gotta start somewhere, though, and Jeff takes it.

Grins, “Perfect,” and steadies himself to get up. “Alright, then. One. Two. Three.”

Jared remains slumped on the floor, at first. Gathers his arms out of the twist and rubs at himself until Jeff’s boot snaps him out of it once, twice.

“Sit down. My breakfast’s cold enough, thanks to you.”

~

The quiet is temporary. If Jeff plays it right, he can prolong it. Maintain it. Nourish it. He’s in control. All he has to do is remember and execute it.

JR gives nasty glances at both of them. Steals them over shoulders, more or less obvious. Jeff is almost sorry that he doesn’t care.

The storm left a mess, preparedness or not. Jared gets assigned to broom and rake; meaningless work he is least prone to fuck up. And he is _aware_ its sole purpose is to tire him out. Which, pretty much, makes it perfect.

Jeff nags whenever he runs into him. Kid redoes the courtyard four times or so; Jeff loses count. Is quiet, and tired. When Jeff finally hands him a water bottle, he half-drowns himself in it.

Those eyes might have worked on his mom, but the sooner he learns that Morgan can’t be bought with the pity shit, the better. For all of them.

Tension builds and eventually breaks when Jeff shoos him away from the house around noon.

Jared might not even be aware that he grabs his stomach, twists his tee. Stutters in his step, stills, unsure what to do or say. Apparently, twenty-four hours without food is the number of hours without food it takes to strip this one of its bravado.

Jeff doesn’t tell him, that night, but he’s only allowed dinner because he didn’t blurt out that ‘but’.

JR takes care of the dishes, unasked, as always. Jeff nurses a smoke out on the porch, in his rocking chair. The stillness of the scene does him good. Exciting as it may be, company of more than one person is the kind of stirring Morgan isn’t used to anymore.

The night is heavy and quiet. Drapes over the land like a blanket, dips colors away, blurs all edges.

Footfalls bring him JR who wipes his hands over his jeans, silently asking for attention Jeff spares by not telling him to piss off. He stands there, lost, pretending to see what Jeff is resting his eyes on across the yard.

Then, eventually, far-away, “Should I send him to bed or anything?”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Okay.”

JR idles just another hopeful few moments before slipping back inside.

~

Being woken by any racket can only have one source here, but Jeff’s brain is indifferent to that, so he jolts upright as fast as his body pours out a gallon of sweat.

The cane it is, and Jeff excuses the jitter in himself with the need for violence rather than unmasked terror. Jared hollers instead of kicking in the door as soon as he hears the keys. Will be interesting to see how long it takes for him to understand that Jeff isn’t one to tire out of starving him, if that’s what gets him his will.

Growls, “Kid,” and, “if that was a flower vase I’d told you to pluck fucking roses to put in it.”

Jared’s features fall into utter disgust. Jeff spots JR, arm behind his head and watching from his bed.

“I’m not gonna piss into a _bucket_.”

“If you wake me again because of your grade school bladder, you’ll piss _out_ of a _tube_.”

JR supplies, “He can’t do it when someone’s watching,” and Jared pale-gasps just enough to bring out the joy in Jeff’s cold heart.

“He has his own girl parts, y’know. No need to be ashamed.”

“You’re sick,” Jared insists. “I’m not pissing into a bucket.”

“Then you’re not pissing at all. Good night.”

“Y-you can’t—”

Jeff locks them back up. They don’t talk about it, but Jeff makes gentle note of Jared emptying the bucket first thing in the morning.

~

Jared is shameless and he lacks a basic understanding of private space that isn’t his own. He always ever remembers what and when he wants to, or whatever JR says or does. It’s a bad habit to break him out of but it pisses JR off about as much as it pisses off _Jeff_. So Jeff only ever glares, and Jensen only ever avoids seeing his Jeffrey bitchy over an ass that isn’t Jensen’s.

When Jared leans in, or tosses his too-long limbs, he’s so, so young. Like nothing bad ever happened to him. Like there is no need, at all, to be cautious, with anything he says or does.

It scratches too-deep itches, really. Jeff Morgan is aware he’s too sentimental for anyone’s good.

Criers are usually mama’s boys, and Jared is no exception.

The pleas for phone access start barely a week in. He’d like to call his dear mother, sir, hear if she’s okay or, even just to hear her voice. At this point, the implied gullibility is nothing but insulting.

Kid drops the kindness two hard ‘nos’ in. Goes from choir boy to stone-cold, such a predator face at this young age it could stir a faithful man. Jared demands, “Why not?” and he doesn’t have to roll his shoulders back or raise his chin to stand taller than Morgan.

“You’re not the one asking the questions.”

“I have the right—”

“You’re meat. That’s all you are out here. Understand?”

Jared’s fury remains inward, boiling.

“I asked if you _understand_.”

Jared narrows his eyes and that might be harmless and cute and downright ridiculous, but it’s not what Jeff asked for. And that’s unacceptable.

“Okay,” Jeff decides, and pinches the remaining butt of his cigarette between his fingers to toss it to the ground, “you know who gets fed? Those who do their _jobs_. Who do what I tell them to do.”

That glare remains unbroken, if not fueled by the implied threat. If it doesn’t hurt yet, Jeff will have to make it so.

“And the animals, of course,” he adds. A stomp and twist of his boot extinguishes the cigarette. “You might look like it but you’re no bitch, Jared. So do what I say or starve.”

That has Jared’s face shifting into a bewildered snarl. “You can’t do that,” he insists, “you can’t. My mom will sue the shit out of you.”

Morgan raises his good forefinger into the space between them and gives Jared a slow wink from underneath his Stetson. “You only get caught if you’re not doing it right,” and he beckons the boy to follow him then, hollers, “Chop chop,” and loves the sound of unwillingly dragging feet on his dirt.

Jared, clever kid, only hesitantly follows him inside the barn.

“Y’know, they’re banning _gavage_ , over in Europe. A damn shame. You ever had _foie gras_? It’s—what you’re looking at? It’s a French name, for God’s sake, Jesus— _nevermind_. To get to the point: it’s delicious. Melts on your tongue. Anyway,” Jeff ends in front of the tool shelves, “you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this.”

“Not really.”

“Not really? Aw, _man_ , Jay-bird.” Morgan slumps and stems his hands onto his hips. “You’re such a buzzkill, you know that?”

“Well, you said _‘gavage’_.”

“Yeah, I did. You know how that applies to you, fair prince?”

Jared’s grin is long gone. His eyes slip to the tools, back to Morgan. Who points at a twine of clear plastic tubes.

“You think you’d be the first motherfucker I tube-fed?” No reply, just abashed looks. “Don’t think I won’t do it. Ain’t nobody gonna die on me out here. I’m no monster. Not like that,” he adds, softer and through a smirk, and Jared averts his eyes in disgust.

“Whatever.”

“What was that?”

“Whatever, sir.”

“That’s more like it.”

Morgan slaps the boy on the back, hard and encouraging, and so they return to work outside.

JR’s glare is immediate and laser-focused on Jeff’s arm around Jared’s shoulders, and Jeff gives that tuft of hair a nice little-kid ruffle before letting him slip away.

He nods his chin towards Jensen. “How ’bout some coffee, Mama?”

JR flips him off while walking into the opposite direction of the house, and Jeff laughs.

~

Without wind gusts, the desert is as quiet as a morgue. There’s scrabbling insects if you put your ear to the sand and wait. The rustling of dried-up weeds. There’s no more buffaloes to stomp through here. Everything is long dead, or about to die.

Nightfall only emphasizes that.

There’s plenty of space on the steps, but Morgan makes sure to plant his ass right the fuck next to Jared as he’s sucking the tar out of today’s last smoke. He asks, while already reaching into his pocket, “Wanna see something cool?” and Jared barely-nods, blinks so tired he might fall asleep on the porch. They’re best like that.

It’s a nice moment. Tame and peaceful. The stuff for dreams; the good kind.

“My dad gave this to me when I was all but a little bug. And his dad gave it to him.” Jeff turns sideways so the light from inside catches on the knife, lets it shine brand-new. He watches Jared’s face while he shows off the object. Clearly, it’s a beacon for any eye, even the most tired one. “You wanna touch it?”

The boy, simple and love-spoiled as he is, cups his palm to receive without asking. Morgan makes sure to make their hands touch.

“I lied,” Jeff confides, gritty and rough but enthralled by the unskilled (but careful) way the boy handles the item. “Got it at the dollar store. But it does the trick.” He smokes some more. Jared is still fumbling around with the knife. “You’re not the blade kinda guy, are you?”

Jared shakes his head, all hunched over.

Jeff raises a hopeful eyebrow. “Your daddy never showed you how to use one?”

“He didn’t exactly stick around for anything, so.”

Mh. What a shame. “I can’t keep watching this. Here, you open it like that. See? Don’t cut yourself,” he advises as he hands the knife back over, and all of this is risky, but Jared’s all but a sleepy kitten right now who probably couldn’t count his fingers if asked to. “It’s a shame. A boy should know how to work a knife. You ever carved anything? Built anything? No? Oh man, I’m getting all teary-eyed here. What the hell. Wait.”

Jeff hefts himself up to stumble back inside, gets a log of wood from the fireplace to toss it into Jared’s lap.

“It’s meditative,” Jeff tells him and drops back down. “Try it.”

~

This year, JR came out here in some modest fat jeep of his own, and Jeff’s not been in the mood yet to hear where that kinda money had come from. Kid seems healthier with the gained weight. Whichever pitiful john has been feeding him, at least they’re doing something somewhat right.

Not that Jeff ever was anything but pitiful himself. But running after someone like Ackles, that takes a degree of being able to love and being hopeful that Morgan cannot remember he ever possessed.

“How’re you holding up, champ?” The lack of any reaction at all is no surprise. Jeff props himself up against the nearest post to get comfy. Some, you gotta lure out. “You gonna be pissed at your man all summer?”

Jensen slams the sledgehammer down on his current post with emphasized force.

Jeff snickers into his beard. “You used to like me sweet-talkin’ to you.”

“And you used to like me suckin’ your dick, but I guess we do grow out of some things, Jeffrey.”

Jeff whistles. “Ouch.”

JR reminds, “He’s a brat,” and keeps beating down on the poor piece of wood while he speaks. “Spoiled. Motherfucking. Crybaby.”

Morgan beams, “I have a type,” and out of all the nasty tries, this one gets him eye contact.

JR’s chest is heaving with the efforts of his work, and the worn-out cotton of his tee is soaked over his chest, in large circles under his arms. It used to be too big on him but nowadays he fills it better than Morgan ever did.

JR pants, “Are you done?”

“I dunno, am I?”

“What, you want my blessing or somethin’? Quit dickin’ around, you’re gonna fuck him anyway, so what’s even the point. Fuck off before I break your fucking nose.”

“Hey, language, son.”

JR exclaims, “What?” and throws his arms out to the sides. “You think I’m dumb? You think I don’t know exactly what’s going on here?”

“I dunno, what do you think is it that’s going on here?”

“You replaced me.”

Jensen’s pointing at him and glares like this is a knife fight. Moves in on Jeff now, too, and the man would be scared if the kid in front of him hadn’t said and sworn the things he’s said and sworn over the past couple’a years he’s known him. Jeff can lean back and wait for those two hundred pounds of pent-up testosterone to close in on him before they inevitably bend to his will once more. It’s as easy as that. Jensen’s just as a sad creature as any other being on this godforsaken piece of land and while Jeff likes to pretend he can forget that, he never does.

“A newer model. Smooth and soft and stupid. Just like you like ’em.” Jeff opens his mouth to reply but JR growls, “Don’t you fucking deny it, I swear to God, Morgan,” so he stops and splutters a laugh instead. “Yeah, hilarious. You know what’s the biggest joke? You.” JR shoves his finger against Morgan’s sternum.

Jeff’s expression sobers.

Their faces are mere inches apart at this point.

“Oh,” JR murmurs, “what is it, Daddy? Did that hurt?” and does it again.

Morgan catches that hand before it can fully retreat.

Jensen is putting up just enough resistance so Jeff has to grab him hard enough to hurt.

“You don’t touch me,” reminds Morgan, all quiet and calm wrenching a wrist which is just a tug and twist away from breaking. They both know that. And if JR was a year or two younger, he’d push him there. They both know that, too.

This up close, you can really see the years on this one. Like a fucking tree trunk, carved deep into that angel face that by God never did the boy any good—Morgan, he’s read it so much it’s as good as a lullaby.

Jensen, he’s probably been beaten out of pulling faces before he’s learned to dress himself, so he’ll talk with his eyes. He’ll tell you everything you want and don’t wanna hear just by locking eyes with you. He’s always watching, and if he’s staring at you like he’s inviting you to take a dip into the goddamn quicksand he’s keeping inside of him, you should know better than to consider yourself lucky.

Jeff’s okay toying with drowning. There’s not much left of him anyway. And for a moment, in this beautiful frozen moment of just them and the wind and the dirt, the sweat and heat and the faint sensation of someone else’s skin in his shredded-to-shit palm, hell, Morgan could forget.

There’s things JR’s never done, and one of them is moving in for a kiss. It’s a pride thing or whatever, as if it would kill him to show he’s interested beyond anyone’s genitalia. He’ll beg you, though, silently. You move just the slightest inch and he understands your intentions, stays still, and waits.

The moment their lips touch, it’s like a dam breaking. Painful, like taking a breath after swallowing too much water, and Jeff has to push the guy away soon because he can’t bear it.

Jensen stumbles backwards, confused; smears the back of his gloved hand over his mouth.

Jeff tells him, “Get back to work,” and starts moving just for the sake of getting away.

~

“You got a girl, back home?”

“Yeah.” Jared talks without looking up from where he’s carving what’s slowly beginning to look like a sword.

Jeff nods and sucks on his smoke. “She got a name?”

“Sure. None-of-yer-business McLane.”

Jeff laughs. “You’re priceless,” he admits and begins to shake off his boot. “Here, put the knife down for a second.”

Jared does, blindly, and Jeff loves that. Loves the complete horror on that face too when Jeff maneuvers his socked foot into his lap, the whole-body shock of him shoving the offensively smelling thing away from himself.

Jeff laughs even harder. “Hey now, come on. You know the way right into any lady’s heart? A good foot massage. Get hustlin’.”

Kid’s gawping at him as if Jeff’s spelled out what he’d actually like to get done.

“What? Get with it.”

Jeff hadn’t been sure how serious he was but as the boy slow as molasses begins to shift into position and raise his hands, by god. They’ll have to pry this outta his cold, dead hands.

“That’s a boy.”

Happy, honest praise, and shit, the kid deserves it. His touches are as ginger as they come but they are there, and he peels the half-rotten sock off too as he is prompted. All Jeff is left with to do is sink lower against the railing and sigh with obvious delight.

“Mmh. Not half bad.”

Jared stays quiet. Probably tries to breathe as little as possible.

Jeff angles his right leg out some more. One hand lazy on his belly, the other brings his smoke back to his lips. He hums, blissed out.

“Not half bad at all.”

He’s got strong fucking hands. Wiry and, now, rough with callus and torn skin, but that only adds to the intensity of the touches. The sentence _Nobody’s touched me like that in a long time_ sits deep down his throat; he swallows it.

God, he’s beautiful. His eyes obscured by his bangs hanging into his face, the jut of his chin. The determined squeeze of his fingers.

Morgan’s gonna get hard and hasn’t decided what to do with that yet.

He blows away his current lungful, curls his toes. “Don’t think I’ll go soft on you, just because you’ve got magic hands. You hear me?” but there’s no reaction but for the slightest touch of a smile. It’s gone before it was ever there.

~

Mr. Brenner used to add the sentence ‘Mr. Morgan spends too much time dreaming in class’ to every one of his report cards. Elementary school, back then. He wouldn’t complete many more years beyond that, but he figures he’s never managed to rid himself of this one bad habit. Bad habits, that’s kind of everything he’s managed to hold on to.

Mr. Morgan can’t remember much about his childhood except that his mother yelled at him a lot and that not having a dad got him into too many fights to lose his milk teeth the natural way.

One of the few things Mr. Morgan’s memory held onto is the first time somebody called him a faggot while beating the shit out of him. The kid himself probably didn’t know what that word he just used meant, and Morgan sure as hell didn’t, but it sounded filthy and hateful and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, sir, he wouldn’t let anyone call him any names like that.

Back then, nobody talked about that shit but as the butt of a joke. Everybody seemed to know exactly what those words meant without it ever being addressed, and nobody questioned it. An unspoken rule, written by shared laughter with your friends.

At thirteen, Morgan was more of a man than he figured his dead-beat excuse of a father could ever have hoped to be. Known for his mean mouth and meaner left hook, you knew better than to mess with him or his buddies. When Mike Hayes and him hid out in Mrs. Thompson’s shed and waited for night to fall and give them shelter, it all began with Mike stroking his hair out of his face.

He remembers how they turned it into a game of fighting and laughing and tugging. He remembers how it felt to roll around and around, that weight underneath or above him, the joy of it; this innocent game of touching and being touched.

He remembers what Mike’s face looked like after the boys were done with him, and he remembers the moment of deciding who he was gonna be.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Morgan gets frowned at, offended. Jared stabs the pitchfork into the dung. “What’s it look like, gramps?”

“Watch it.” Morgan is propped up against the barn box door, arms crossed. He nods towards the wheelbarrow. “You know you gotta move that eventually, right?”

“Yeah? So?”

Morgan scoffs. “Oh, I’m gonna watch _that_.”

Jared grimaces and resumes loading the already overflowing cart.

Pliancy is a rare gift Morgan can’t quite trust just yet. Too good to be true. But the kid _is_ shoveling horse shit, and he didn’t have to be persuaded at gunpoint. Maybe this is a new generation of fuck-ups, too lazy even to rebel for too long.

The sight of Jared finally tackling the wheelbarrow makes Morgan’s back ache in sympathy.

Both feet stemmed into the dirt, he summons all his strength to lift the cart by its handles—he will have to push it all the way to the dunghill. Kid hopelessly overrated himself and has no idea. The luxury and curse of too-sheltered, too-confident.

Morgan slaps his thigh, laughing, when boy and wheelbarrow inevitably tip to the side. Jared can save himself from tumbling into the mess, but rage overtakes him nonetheless. He kicks the dirt first, then the wheelbarrow.

“Fuck! Shit!”

“Exactly,” bellow-laughs Morgan. “Now get shoveling, boy!”

His leg has been good to him lately and grants Jeff Morgan enjoyment of the sun, the company. JR creates just enough distance for Jared not to be too much. Jeff returns to the house and both of his boys are peacefully skinning potatoes. Jeff slams the door nevertheless. Jared flinches, JR doesn’t.

“Which one of you touched the radio?”

“Him.”

“Well, and you _let_ him, J. Ross.” Morgan limps to the device and begins tuning it back into its eternal, original state. “That’s what they call ‘music’ these days? Shut the fuck up.”

“We listen to your old shit all the time, it’s only fair if—”

“Life isn’t fair, fucking deal with it. And don’t touch my shit again. Ah,” he sighs, “much better,” and smacks Jared on the back of the head upon passing him.

So they’re starting to get along.

A reason to celebrate, maybe, but foremost, Jeff Morgan must be on guard even more now: the two of them have too much in common. If they gang up, Jeff’s not gonna stand a chance.

Jeff lingers outside the barn, waiting for JR to finish up with the horses. He’s on his second last smoke for the day, Stetson already hung on the coat rack. JR doesn’t expect him and, for a second, seems genuinely spooked. Then, it’s the good old game.

“You done in there?” JR nods. Jeff mirrors that, hums, “Good. Good.”

After a too-long pause, JR breaks, softly. “Anything else you need?”

“In fact, I do.” Jeff sucks on his smoke with emphasis, exhales through his nose. Leaning against the warm barn, all worn-out from the long day. He knows what he looks like. It’s written all over JR’s face. Poor devil. “You mind answering a question? I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.”

Jensen Ross shrugs, “’Course,” and steals some more inches from in between them.

Jeff Morgan focuses on those eyes now. Those goddamn quicksand pools, seemingly liquid in the blue light of a falling night, in the full halo of all of Jeff’s attention. His voice way down low, he asks, “Can I trust you, boy?” and it’s the most superfluous thing to ask, for so, so many reasons. But it has to be asked, and JR has to say his line.

“’Course, Jeff,” he says, so genuine, so reverent, it’d delight any white-vested priest.

“Good.”

“Why? The radio? You trust me that little now?”

“It’s not about the goddamn radio, no.”

“If it’s about him, you’re out of your mind.” Jensen leans back, out of their shared space. Spooked horse, widening nostrils. Offended. He stuffs his hands under his armpits because he doesn’t know where else to put them. “You think I’d care about him? He’s a fucking _child_.”

Jeff chuckles. “Yeah, no. You’re right.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good,” ends Jensen, and walks off, towards the house.

Jeff cranes his head after him. “Hey.” He hears JR coming to a halt.

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you let him? Mess with my radio, I mean.”

A pause, in which JR considers the sincerity of the question and Jeff picks up his smoking.

JR eventually replies, “I was curious what you’d do to him,” and Jeff chuckles to his cigarette.


	3. Chapter 3

Truth is a dangerous thing. Of course, you’re after it, but often enough you’re everything but ready. In fact, Morgan has come to the conclusion that living lies (or half-truths, at best) is the least traumatizing. It takes a good bit of ignorance, sure, but he’ll take the numbness any day. The truths; they tend to bring, first and foremost, misery.

“I can’t keep watching this.”

JR leaves his observation point next to Jeff to push past Jared, onto the paddock. Jeff watches with bemusement.

Jared, out of breath and shining with sweat, can’t control the drop of his jaw at the sight of Jensen stomping right into the excited herd. When it becomes clear that he’s beelining for Clyde, Jeff swears he can see Jared’s knees weaken.

JR closes in on the stallion without hesitation, grabs him by the mane and jumps onto his back.

Clyde barely flinches.

JR bellows, “Heya!” and sets Clyde in motion.

To be fair, it hadn’t been polite to assign Jared with driving the herd home with a pat on the back and a, “Just go for it,” but having to witness JR doing it so breezily, bareback on a seventeen-hands black beast of a Thoroughbred…now, that’s devastating.

Jared walks into the fence, his head twisted nearly a hundred eighty degrees, and keeps watching the spectacle.

Jeff snorts, forgotten.

~

Little brothers, doomed to live in the shadow of their successor—doomed to look up to someone, always. They’re born this way, fixated on the endless sky and shimmering stars, unreachable.

Jared Tristan oozes the pathos of someone being loved by the wrong person while being neglected by the right one.

He’s too young yet to see it himself—how much it really had and continues to hurt him that his daddy ran away. That his older brother refused to fill the resulted gap, to distribute attention and pass on whatever their father had shared with him. Had Jeff been the Padaleckis’ only love child?

They don’t know how vulnerable they are. How mendable, soft like dough. Young men die for the most ridiculous causes. Military, religion, politics. Too few of them are honest enough to die for actual love.

Jared Tristan sulks on the armchair by the fireplace, knees pulled close to his chin. Wood chips surround him, splinter-sized. He’s in a world of his own, oblivious to time and space, to Jeff Morgan, the house.

Jeff Morgan smokes, fed and tired, sprawled on his chair, with JR around the corner, out of sight, taking care of the dishes. Despite the answer being obvious, he asks, “What’re you working on, champ?” all for the hedonistic desire of hearing that sleep-rough voice.

Jared says, “A sword,” without looking up.

“A little small for a sword, don’t you think?”

“No. It’s gotta be.”

Jeff smiles, already halfway dreaming. “Why’s that?”

Jared remains laser-focused on his knife, his miniature work—the sword measures maybe fifty inches. He’s taken off his tee at some point. His round, brown shoulder flexes with the tight radius of his arm’s movements. He murmurs, “I gotta get it right, first.”

“So you gonna make a big one after that?”

“Why?” Now, Jared looks at him. Annoyed, cowering. “Aren’t I allowed to?”

“Maybe,” coughs Jeff, grinning. “Depends on how sharp the blade’s gonna be.”

“Not much,” assures Padalecki, once more absorbed by his handiwork. “Your damn knife is blunt as shit.”

~

If it wasn’t for JR, Clyde would have been sent to the nearest meat grinder years ago. A fickle beast that up to this day would not allow anybody to touch him, let alone ride him—anybody but JR. Hated him too, at first, but one day Jeff staved himself off a quick prayer as JR just went for it, no saddle, no nothing. Clyde had twitched violently enough to scare most grown men. But not JR. And so JR tamed the only living being on this farm anywhere close to his own level of obstinacy.

Inseparable, the two. As much as JR is fond of the stallion, he hates Bonnie. She’s a tame girl. JR might just despise everything with virtue in their soul.

Now that Jared’s warming up to Bonnie, Jeff has to be extra alert.

“Hey,” hollers Jeff, “baby girl, you mind watching your own hands? Poor doc shouldn’t have to come to sew those back on, should he?”

JR grudgingly breaks whatever curse he’s been summoning with his mile-long glare and resumes his efforts on the barn’s roof.

It’s rare that he has to be told, these days. Between Morgan and him, they had established silent conversations years ago. It’s not going well. Jeff sighs. He might have to tell the kid to get lost eventually, and how on earth is he supposed to do that?

Turning back to his task at hand, he says, “Looking good, Jay,” and it’s not even that much of a lie—Jared’s by far no natural but seeing him sitting straight for once is a sight for sore eyes.

Bonnie carries him with delight in a slow walk. “Can we, like, ride out or something?”

“Very funny. How ’bout you learn the ropes first, cowboy?”

“This is boring.”

“But at least you’re not crashing into your death.” Jeff Morgan makes his way further onto the paddock, supported by his cane. Bonnie’s ears perk at the rustle of sugar cubes in Jeff’s pocket. She trots towards him. “Maybe next week”, muses Jeff, giving her a treat, petting her downy-soft nose, “once you’re a little more stable.”

“Cool,” says Jared, without much emotion at all. Then, pointedly nonchalant, “Is he gonna come, too?”

“What, Ross?” Jeff peers up, into the sun, to Jared’s blank stupid face. Jeff scoffs, adjusts his Stetson. “It’s gonna be some time until you’re ready to ride with him, kid.”

“We could ask,” offers Jared, shrugging. “He said he’s bored, too.”

“He told you that?”

Jared shrugs again.

Jeff whistles, feeds some more sugar to Bonnie’s begging lips. “You’re practically besties, huh? Cute.”

Jared groans. “Can you, like, not be a complete ass, like, all the fucking time?”

Jeff Morgan shows some teeth with his grin and pets Bonnie on the neck. “Absolutely not.”

~

“What’s that one mean?”

Jeff raises the arm in question until the bonfire illuminates his tattoos. “Which one?”

“‘Bisou’?”

“She was my dog.”

“Oh. Okay.” A contemplating pause. “What breed?”

“Bit of a Pitbull, St. Bernard… You got any, back home?”

Jared nods as he blesses Jeff with the first smile Jeff’s seen him in. “Three. They’re awesome.”

“I bet.”

“Why didn’t you get another one? After she passed?”

Jeff shrugs, tosses more wood into the fire. “Had her for thirteen years. Didn’t feel right to replace someone like that.”

“Well, what happened?”

“Oh, JR killed her, I think. No proof of course. He’s goddamn clever.”

Stunned silence. “You’re shitting me.”

“Am not.”

More silence.

Jeff scoffs.

Jared, for once, seems at an actual loss for words. He flails his hands helplessly as if trying to grasp the facts. “Why… _how_ can you keep him around?”

Jeff dips away the ashes from his smoke and flashes a tooth or two as he half-smiles.

“A boy like JR? You can’t send that away.”

~

JR’s got doll eyes, some picture-perfect girl mouth. Of course, guys like him would refuse to be adorable, or flirty, or mildly polite. The latter is what does it for Jeff, and the first is what makes Jared zone out more often than not.

JR’s out of his league by miles but he’s too young to have an understanding of how these things work. Maybe doesn’t even think too much about how JR’s a Real Boy. God. What Jeff would give to be growing up nowadays.

Jeff Morgan would bet money on how Jared’s beaten up the one or other fairy-ish kid. If only to fit in. If only to demonstrate: that’s not him.

Morgan’s seen JR outside of the farm, in real life, before. Out in the city, at the doctor’s; getting groceries. He knows how the kid carries himself and what effects he has on other people. But a peer, a younger kid even… Must have been years since JR’s been to school. Probably considers himself grown out of dealing with anyone younger than your typical john. People like him and Jeff, they don’t do well being children (or being reminded that they once must have been).

JR’s mentioned siblings before—an older brother, a younger sister—but only passingly. Jeff’s not too sure if they’re half-siblings or not, and maybe JR isn’t, neither. If anything, they must have been rivals regarding food, affection, warmth. When God made Jensen Ross Ackles, he wasn’t intended to be a brother.

Jared can’t seem to understand that he is not quietly accepted but, in fact, being put up with.

Jeff had felt queasy about having told him about the dog, then confident, and now he wonders if it left any impression at all.

It’s quite a sight, watching the two of them together—Jared’s barely-contained clumsiness, how badly he tries to act and move just like JR in order to invoke a sense of belonging. And JR, so utterly confused and put off. He’d be able to play the kid like a fiddle, easily, if only he had enough incentive. But poor Jared is merely a worm in JR’s breakfast apple.

Jeff just finished up with the water tanks and makes his way towards the barn to check on his boys. He nearly collides with Jared, who’s buckling under the weight of three grimy saddles. Kid’s not got enough time to give Jeff the whole intensity of his stink eye because he’s being pushed forward, stumbling over his too-long feet.

“Jesus, move!” bleats JR from behind, and Jeff breaks into a mean smile for the sudden blush of shame ghosting over that dirt-smeared face. JR hadn’t expected Jeff. “What?” he grunts, and pushes past both Jeff and Jared, with nothing but a light-weight bucket and a sponge carried by his meaty arms.

Jeff is spinning on his heels to take in both of them and leans up against the barn to let the laughter overtake him freely. Jared manages to glare through the thick layer of sweat he’s building up—but does waddle after his idol.

Jeff wipes a tear from his eye. “Oh, he has ones like you for breakfast.”

~

Some mornings, you wake up and know it’s gonna be a beautiful day. And while God and karma do their best to keep that from happening to old Jeff Morgan, it does occur every blue moon or so.

Jeff Morgan re-shaves his head out on the porch, whistles along to the radio he’s pulled outside with him. The cord strains. Morgan grooms his beard next.

JR is too proud to be caught staring, but Jeff’s ego inflates at that certain twist to those eyes once he steps back inside, still topless.

“Imma go for a supply run today,” says Jeff. “Where’s the kid?”

“Paddock,” replies JR, clears his throat as his voice breaks. Jeff smiles.

The house is waking up along with them, the heat creeping up on it like another living thing—wood contracts, expands. The roof begins to sizzle patiently. Just another summer day.

Jeff Morgan lays all the softness and direction into his voice now.

“I’ll be back at around seven,” he says, carefully, full eye-contact, and through the constant sighing of the house and the radio’s distant cackling, he swears he can hear JR’s gears turn with every new syllable. “You’ll look after him for me, won’t you?”

The rhetorical question marks JR’s turn to speak, but he’s not quite there yet.

Once he is—and Jeff can tell when, because the devastation settles so immediately, so painfully in that entire boy, in every fiber of him; that first handful of seconds where it’s too impactful to be stashed away—he replies, “’Course, sir.”

Jeff puts on aftershave, his good shirt, his shades. Pulls his Stetson from the hanger and goes to saddle Mustard. “I’ll be back in the evening,” he informs his audience of two from horseback.

JT can’t refrain from whining the obvious, “Can’t we come along?”, so Jeff reprimands, “Exactly, you can’t.”

JR’s silent as a grave, his arms crossed so tight in front of his chest his hands must’ve gone numb a while ago. Jeff makes sure to graze him with his look.

“And don’t get slackin’. I’ll be able to tell if you do.”

Morgan sets Mustard into motion, leaving a gust of dust, horse, aftershave and soap.

It’s a two-hour ride to James’ farm. Morgan takes the truck from there for another three hours. It’s a beautiful day with just the right amount of wind.

The town is unspectacular but busy enough for Morgan not to dwell out in the street for too long. They know his spiel around here—he orders in advance, on the same days, the same stocks. Some stores grant him a vet discount. Morgan’s been buying from here ever since he purchased the land roughly two decades ago.

There’s a new face behind the grocery check-out. Mid-twenties, black. But Rod didn’t have kids, did he? A cousin, maybe.

“Is that all?” the guy asks, politely. Jeff can smell fear ten miles up wind. Kid probably (definitely) decided Jeff’s distrustful stares are the ones of just another racist white trash farmer.

The store is packed to the brim with products, as always. Colorful labels scream from every shelf. Unfortunately, they added a TV into one of the corners, blaring advertisements. Jeff’s neck stiffens. “What happened to Rod?”

“Rod? Oh, he, well. His momma’s been getting worse, so he went to take care of her for a while. But he figured he’ll be back in, like, another month.”

Jeff grumbles a noise of approval and hands over the cheque.

It all used to be different, easier. Nam changed a lot of things aside from the number of complete limbs he’s got to show. Having the farm all to himself most of the year is both a comfort and a problem. Getting soft there, Morgan.

The clerk helps loading the truck. Jeff checks the time and decides to treat himself to a nice cup of joe. It’s better to give JR some more time.

~

Night settles like a predator. Jeff Morgan feels both in and outside of his body.

Excitement, probably. It’s been quite some time.

Jeff Morgan can be quiet. Every plank of wood is familiar, each creak avoided all-too easily. The house has always been his most loyal accomplice.

They’re in his bedroom because JR’s the devil. An extension of Jeff after all this time, the shared secrets, everything. There’s a bunch of pulling motions inside of Jeff Morgan right about now, one of them around the corners of his mouth.

Jared is all muscle, pulled tight over bones. His tan goes deep but stops just above his ass, where he’s usually wearing his jeans. So little fat that JR’s fingers barely have enough to dig into where he’s trying to show Jared how to do it right, where he spreads the kid for Jeff’s view. JR cut Jeff’s gaze just now and lifts his own legs some more, pulls Jay’s ass open some more. Jay doesn’t pay much attention to any of it, shifts his weight, unsure in every twitch of his body and if it isn’t his first time it’s at least his first time with another guy, and Jeff likes that idea.

Jared does notice when Jeff enters their room.

“Shit, f-fuck, uh—”

“Stay.”

Jared stutters on getting pulled in, hard, by JR.

Blabbers, “Jen—whu,” sex-drunk with his dick still up inside JR who promises, “It’s okay, c’mon,” and rocks him with two hands on his ass. Jeff is behind them now, perfect view—Jared, with his sweat-shiny back and sliver of pubes, dark furl of an asshole JR presents like the gift it is.

JR holds Jeff’s gaze across Jared’s shoulder. Jeff undoes his belt buckle.

“H-hey! Hey!”

“It’s alright. Jus’ keep going.”

“What the fuck!”

Jay whips is head around, tries to break free from the clutch of JR’s hands, legs, ass; every available limb scrambles for grip, but JR is stronger and faster by miles—has him pinned with leg lock and choke hold, has him shuddering with his pointless curses and protests, both of his wrists caught in one of JR’s hands and wedged between two heaving chests.

Jeff runs the first fingertips over the spread-held Grand Prize. Jay sobs on cue.

“No! Fuck! Don’t you dare!”

“You got him?”

“Go ahead.”

“No! You motherfuckers! You assholes!”

Slow-smear of raw cock over high school cherry and Jay ripples with fright again, roars when it doesn’t give him a single inch. Jeff slaps his cock down on the tiny ass his free hand is cupping now.

“Not gonna lie: this one’s gonna hurt. How much though, that depends on you. You gonna be good for me?”

Jared is hyperventilating into Jen’s shoulder, and Jeff can make out some faint chanting of _fuck you’s_.

Jeff smiles down on them.

“Not what a good boy would say.”

The pockets of all of Jeff’s jeans are baggy enough to carry the standard pump bottle around (the one he bulk-buys, once a year, around Christmas). He retrieves it before he drops his jeans—two good pumps, not because Jay deserves it but because Jeff isn’t that much of a bastard. He slathers his cock with most of it and rubs the remnants into Jay’s ass.

“Jen. Hold him down real good now.”

That has Jay thrashing (or trying to), and Jeff hums, “Hold still,” despite knowing he won’t be heard, knowing it won’t make much difference either way.

Slow, steady press, and Jeff’s eyes flutter closed.

Jay’s making toenail-pulling noises.

Jeff says, “Keep breathing.”

Jay’s ass shudders, violently, under two of Jeff’s palms. One thumb on either side pulls for a better view and stretch, and Jeff groans with his eyes glued to where he’s sinking into—even an untrained eye could tell how tight of a fit this is, that this must feel like Heaven, and God, it does. It always does.

Jen strains as Jay tries to buck, again, and Jeff slams his flat palm over the already-flush of his ass, and Jay sobs, pinned and speared and exhausted already.

Jeff mumbles, “Let me,” and Jared’s body won’t, but it’s more of a warning than a question.

Rocking in place, nowhere to go but in, the angle a little off and Jay’s insides cramp, violated. Nothing to do but push through, soothe a palm over the dip of lower back, coo meaningless sweetnesses. Jeff pulls him back by the hips to cram in the remaining inches, and Jay keens, his voice breaking on the peak of it. He doesn’t even lift his head anymore.

Jeff fucks through the first too-tight drags, long steady strokes that pull the kid inside out just so, have him grunting and groaning in all of Jeff’s favorite pitches.

“There you go.”

Fatherly sweep up that spine, the pooled sweat.

“He still hard?”

JR says, “Kinda.”

Jeff lowers his mouth to Jared’s ear.

“That’s a boy.”

Jeff keeps his hips still in favor of moving the kid instead; see-saws so Jay’s dick gets worked again. The reaction is immediate and butterfly-worthy. Jay hits a new note, breathless gruff that sounds like slobber on JR’s shoulder.

“Yeah. There you go.”

JR groans along with Jay.

“Feels good, sweetheart? He’s got a nice big dick?”

Jen slurs, “Uh-huh,” and Jeff snickers, “Figures.”

Picking up the pace, Jay goes tauter, strains, but Jeff doesn’t intend on giving him a break anytime soon.

“Like it that much, huh?”

Jay’s trying to vocalize some protest that gets drowned out by the slap of skin on skin, the groans of bed frame and floor.

Jensen’s always so quiet with a dick up his ass.

“Go ahead. Fill him up. That’s what you were after. Go on. Do it.”

Jeff spares a handful of fingers to rub from fat-stretched rim down that taint. Rubs two of them inside JR, along with Jay’s cock, and that sounds real good.

Jared’s whimpers do Jeff in—that sobby, defeated tone. The last thrusts jostle all of them with the power that unloads, long-forgotten, mindless.

Jeff blacks out (or thinks he does), only for a moment. There’s all and nothing, simultaneously.

The quiet afterwards is deafening. Nothing but heavy breaths until someone stirs. Jensen pushes the kid off himself as soon as Jeff struggles out of bed.

He gathers his clothes from where they had been slipped off close by. Jeff groans bending over for his jeans and pack of cigarettes but JR already fled the scene. Jeff smokes sitting on the edge of the bed and waits for his turn on the bathroom.

~

Jared hasn’t made it to his own room.

He breathes deeply, on his stomach. A barely-there gurgle of a snore.

Jeff runs his knuckles down that spine, blinks lazy for the halo of too-long hair on his pillows. He scoots in some more to press his morning wood into that hip as he curls his fingers low, eventually uses both hands to spread the boy wide for viewing pleasure. Thumbs over the rawness of it—still soft.

The kid whines on the push-in. Tries to buck up-away, as if Jeff wasn’t everywhere or couldn’t hold him down with nothing but the right words. Yet begs, “No, no,” and sobs into the pillow Jeff smothers him with.

It’s nothing like last night. The kid’s sore, filthy and crying.

Jeff likes them best that way, and he’s never sure if they eventually notice.

Limp, no fight. No movement when Jeff rolls off, out of bed. Jeff leaves the door ajar, would hear it squeak over the rush of the shower. But nothing.

JR is busy fixing breakfast, downstairs. Jeff lights a first cigarette and sets the table as he smokes.

Fried potatoes, bacon. JR’s eyes are strictly fixed on the spatula he’s shoveling three plates full with.

“Do you want me to check on him?”

Jeff grunts in disinterest—enough of an incentive for Jensen to shuffle upstairs. Jeff listens but barely picks up muffled whispers. Only one set of feet comes back down.

JR sighs and divides Jared’s share onto Jeff’s and his own plate. Jeff snickers.

“What? If he wants to play bitch, that’s not my problem.”

“You think he thinks I’ll let him mope all day?”

“I really don’t care.”

Jeff smiles around the first mouthful of food and JR only reciprocates that once he is told to go find and fill the nearest bucket.

Morgan lets JR watch from the doorway as he empties the gallons of night-cold water over Jared’s curled-up body. He drops the bucket with a loud bang and Jared scrambles for safety like some doe in a wildfire. Jeff gets a good grip on the sheets and yanks, sending Jared off the bed easily. He truly weighs nothing; wet heap of bones and left-over come.

“Rise and shine!”

Jared heaves for air, shaking something fierce from head to toe.

“Get dressed. You’re helping JR with the horses today.”

“Go to hell!”

Jeff rolls what is left of his smoke between his lips. “Excuse me?”

“Screw you!” Louder, more desperately: “FUCK you!”

Jensen warns, “Jeff,” and Jeff would be sentimental for that kind of familiarity if he had it in him anymore. As it is, bends down to get a handful of hair and rucks Jared up with it. Downstairs, across the yard, and he tunes out the screams and protests and slurs; Jared in tow, stumbling naked feet over tiles and then dirt.

Jeff hears Jensen hissing for Jay to shut up once he’s figured where Jeff is heading, when the shed already threatens to swallow them up.

Kid lets himself get bent over the pole like he’s had this done before. Quakes, still, and sobbing low, drained before the day’s even started. Jeff shakes loose hairs from his palm so he can tie that much of a firmer knot. It’s already boiling in here, dusty enough to make even Jeff’s smoker lungs itch.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, fuck, fuck fuck please, please don’t!”

Jeff Morgan pats Jay’s ass, walks out of the door and closes it behind himself. Nods for JR, towards the barn, and Jensen goes on ahead.

~

Some water, for Jared, at noon.

“He still crying?”

“Started again when I left.”

“Then go gag him.”

JR frowns, hesitates.

“What?”

“With _what_?”

“I don’t know? A rag, a towel? I don’t care.”

Daylight is beginning to fade when Jeff checks on Jared. He finds him with one cleaning rag tied over his eyes, another chipmunking his cheeks. Jared writhes, weakly. His hands don’t have much of a nice color. The stench of piss and shit combined with stale heat assaults him.

Jeff makes quick work of the ropes and pulls Jared along on his arm, peels off the rags to reveal a pale shadow of a face.

“You know why I had to do that. Don’t you talk like that to me again. Or to JR, for that matter. We clear?”

The boy nods as frantically as his muscles will let him. Jeff could ask him to go face down, ass up right now and he’d do that.

Jeff claps Jared on the back. Places him just outside the house and doesn’t have to tell him to stay put. Kid’s shaking when Jeff returns with the hose, protects his middle before he switches to his junk. Still winces when the spray hits him, but lets it happen. The obedience is heart-warming Jeff enough not to point the hose at his face.

“What the fuck! I just wiped the entire place two days ago!”

Jeff pushes the soaked boy upstairs. “Don’t you worry, he’s gonna clean it up. Including the mess in the shed _and_ the bathroom.”

JR glares nevertheless, but dinner is almost done over in the kitchen.

Jared’s only crying a little anymore, and he does it perfectly dry and quiet. Jeff lathers soap in his hands, runs them back through Jared’s hair. No protest even when Jeff reaches between his legs, scoops the last of the mess out. There’s the same thick chamomile salve Jeff has been using for years and years and years now, and he applies it generously.

Jared avoids eye-contact with JR. He has his hands in his lap. The collar of his tee dips dark where his hair is soaking it.

“And thank you for this meal, and for our health. Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”


	4. Chapter 4

There’s a new shade to the boy now. The uncertainty, the pain. It suits him well—Jared, with the chin-long hair anyway, Jared, with the middle finger-thumb wrists.

Jeff’s not into the fragile type per se. In fact, there’s never been one like Jared T. before. Malnourished, yes, but not like this.

The fight’s left his eyes and only makes itself known in too-stiff fists now, the strict set of his shoulders. He’s hunched, jumpy. Jeff laughs and tells him, “I’m not gonna eat you, boy!”

Jeff’s hands wander over rash-red. Too many showers, but the nervous sweat reeks nonetheless (anew). “Relax,” he advises, even though the kid can’t hear him.

Jared avoids looking at him, which is completely fine by Morgan. It’s easier to lose himself in it this way, just as if he wasn’t really doing it, but maybe dreaming it. Jeff Morgan lowers himself some more, chest to that back. Jared fights his own voice, but Jeff manages to break it here and there.

Jeff buries his face in the crook of that neck and breathes in.

~

Morgan stumbles downstairs, naked, frowning at the rising sun and stilling at the sight of someone sitting at his kitchen table. His heart doubles over long before his brain recognizes JR.

JR throws him a deadpan look. He’s reading a magazine. “What.”

Jeff is sane enough to withhold his reply of how he forgot Jensen’s here.

An awkward silence settles in. JR generously solves it by rolling his eyes and re-adjusting his focus on the magazine in front of him.

Jeff makes his way over to the fridge. “Where’d you get that?”

“It’s his.”

“The porn?”

“‘I was raised on a farm, so I grew up having all of those fantasies.’” Jeff scoffs for JR’s girl-voice. “‘Like, out in the open field and whatnot. It’s _so exciting_.’” Jeff sets the milk jug to his mouth. JR snorts. “I wanna vomit.”

“Gonna add that one to your repertoire?”

“You’re so funny, Jeff Morgan.”

“Let me see that.” Jeff munches away on leftover casserole while he squints at the easily offered-up magazine. The font is tiny enough for his eyes to be useless, so he studies the pictures instead. “It’s sad,” he concludes, handing back the goods. “That’s someone’s daughter.”

“Bet some guys get off on that, too.”

Jeff grumbles.

“Incest is a huge sell, you know.”

“Huh.”

Jeff feels being sized up. “Didn’t know you had such a soft spot for girls.”

“I don’t.”

JR lets him eat for a hot minute. “Billie’s leg is acting up again.”

Jeff eats.

“Thought I’d get him over to James’, let the doc take a look at him.”

Jeff sets the dirty dish into the sink. “Yeah, what, you need me to hold your hand through it or something? You’re not part of the program anymore, remember?”

JR doesn’t reply and Jeff is headed upstairs without waiting around for it.

~

Lunch is tense. It’s been a few days since the last time Jared had been downstairs.

Jeff points at the soup and reminds JT to, “Eat up,” while snapping his fingers for JR to get the kid some more and inhaling a clump of bread himself.

JR does as he’s told with as little sympathy as he can manage. He plops down into his chair and glares—at his own food, at Jared’s naked body, at Jeff’s ill-placed paternity.

Jeff has to remind himself that he’s never promised anything.

JR abandons the dish-filled sink as soon as Jeff’s finished asking the kid to, “Come here and bend over.”

Jared is getting more pliant by the day. He’s enough of a bully himself to know that if he shuts up and takes it, it’s gonna be the least painful for him.

Jeff gives him a reach-around. Jared’s colt-legs twitch wider. A shudder. He doesn’t say no. Not that it’d make a difference.

He’s got him on half-mast by the time it’s over. Quite a milestone, even though it fades as soon as it came.

“JR needs to do some business for me, so I need you with the horses today,” says Jeff, zipping up his jeans and reaching for his Stetson. “I’ll get some coffee started.”

Jared’s sank down to sit with his back to the couch and nods, pushes his hair out of his face. Jeff stops his preparations upon the third step’s creak.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Jared startles, blinks, hand on the railing. “Uh,” he murmurs, “clothes?”

“Did I say you could do that?”

A moment. Then, “No.”

“Then why the fuck are you on the stairs?”

Jared reluctantly turns around.

“Exactly,” praises Jeff. “You can put your boots on.”

Kid is swimming in his own sweat soon enough. He glistens in the sun like he’s bathed himself in oil, continuously wiping at his face, his eyes, his hair. Jeff lets him put on gloves just because they dwarf him even more.

There’s just something about breaking a new one in. It’s as close to a honeymoon as Jeff Morgan’s ever gonna come in this life—the butterflies and all that crap.

There’s just something in the dread and submissiveness tugging at a kid when you tell them to get on all fours in the hay. When they’re too straight and unwilling to curl their ass out right like the ones that eventually come to enjoy it—just grabbing and shoving, handling them. Jared coughs on inhaled dust and Jeff throws him off further by jacking him off, again.

Kid makes a soft noise and begins pushing back.

“You like that,” says Jeff, partly proud, partly mocking.

Jeff’s favorite fantasy is that some of them, he managed to turn queer. That it was so good, so impactful, they never want anything else again.

“You gonna come?” he pants, a pure tease at this point, “You gonna come on this cock, boy?”

Jared huffs and doesn’t. The idea is enough for Jeff.

The evening is extra-mellow. Jeff throws together dinner—JR’s not home yet.

“We missed you,” purrs Jeff upon the sight of him emerging from the dark. He tenses with a premonition, with JR’s lack of a sassy comeback, and rises once he can see more than just a silhouette.

“Where’s my horse,” he prompts, grabbing his cane sudden enough for it to almost slip and fall out of his range, “Jensen Ross—where the fuck is my horse?”

He can see JR frowning and then remembering, rolling his eyes—there’s the slightest slur to that, “Oh, shit,” and Morgan has enough adrenaline roaring through him already to hold himself up long enough to crack his cane across JR’s face.

Kid’s arms come up too late and he goes down. He protects his head, so Jeff’s boot goes for his stomach.

“What did you do,” Jeff yells, kicking and hitting, jabbing his cane where he can and where it’s soft, “I’m asking what did you DO!?” He already knows and simultaneously needs and dreads to hear it.

JR takes the beating like a champ, silently, and thus keeps Jeff’s heart from blistering any further.

Once he’s tired himself out, his breath is rattling. He’s broken a sweat and wipes his forehead with his tee. “I can’t believe it. You! Fucking junkie scum. If you sold him, I swear to God, Ackles—”

“No,” coughs Jensen, tiredly stirring in the dirt. “He’s, I… Left him at James’—”

“And I should be THANKFUL for that?!”

Jeff spits on him.

“As soon as you’re sober, tomorrow,” and Jeff would point his cane if he had the strength left in him, “tomorrow, you’re driving straight there, go grab him. Bring him back. You hear me?”

Jensen nods, hastily. “Yessir.”

Jeff spits on him again before he makes his way back to the house.

~

Morgan descends the stairs to the sight of a fully stacked breakfast table. JR’s in his best clothes.

Morgan stands his ground, effectively blocking Jared, too, while JR scrambles to a stand, chest out, arms behind his back.

“Good morning,” he says, and the slight rasp in his voice tells Jeff that the kid looks way worse than he is.

“You got him home?”

“Yessir.”

“You better.” He shoos. “Now get lost. I don’t feel like seeing your goddamn face today.”

“Yessir.” JR speeds past them, close to perfectly concealing his limp. The last thing Jeff hears before the front door is, “I shined your boots, sir.”

Jeff deep-sighs. He’s nauseous.

Jared has enough sense left not to ask a single question.

Jeff Morgan lets the culprit stew until the late afternoon. It’s the time he requires to calm himself and decide whether or not he even wants to talk about what happened. They’ve had this conversation too many times before. JR’s not gonna change. It’s a sad truth, but a truth it is.

“How did you pay for it?” is what he settles with. JR looks up at him from where he’s crouching in the tool shed over a pulped rat carcass. Jeff rests all his weight on his cane. It’s a hot day. “You didn’t steal anything, I counted. Did you steal from James?”

JR’s left eye is swollen shut. His cheek is slashed and iodine-crusted where Morgan’s cane split his skin. JR just looks at him.

Jeff hesitates. “Did you fuck him?”

JR is cruel enough to let Jeff truly consider the possibility before he eventually speaks. “I’ve brought my own cash.” He turns his voice extra-soft, extra-quiet. He never breaks eye contact. “I didn’t fuck anyone but that brat since I came here two months ago.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“How much you got?”

“Enough.”

“Give me a number.”

“So you can do what, exactly?”

“Know if you’re lying.”

JR blindly releases the rat trap, resets it, gets to his feet. The dead animal dangles from his hand like a grotesque purse.

Jeff repeats, “How much, Jensen?”

JR’s face glosses over with business. “Some faggot up in LA paid me twenty grand to stay with him for a month.”

Jeff blinks away the disgust. “Great.”

“You asked.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

“He said he’d double up if I’d let his dogs go at it, too.” Jensen adds, “I didn’t.”

Jeff Morgan’s heart reminds him of the past. Of JR, four years back, and how nothing has changed at all. That there is no use in discussion or hope or trying to get past anything. Some just can’t be saved.

“Good,” he says, already turning to leave. “So at least you didn’t get dog AIDS, too.”

~

Jeff walks into the barn just to hear, “I can help,” and, “No, you cannot,” to see Jensen stomping off with a furious face, giving Jeff a short side-eye before he vanishes, leaving JT behind.

The kid looks as devastated as it gets anymore, these days. “I just wanted to help,” he says, vaguely shrugging towards the direction JR went.

Jared didn’t ask yet but there’s no way he missed what Jeff had screamed at the top of his lungs last night. Apparently, if anything, it only accelerated his interest in JR.

Great. “You know how girls are during that time of the month.”

It’s windy today. Another sandstorm coming up. With Jared finally broken in, Jeff doesn’t mind the prospect of staying in for a day or two. With JR around, he doesn’t even have to worry about the animals.

Maybe it’s been a blessing for JR to show up despite Jeff Morgan’s numerous, explicit threats. Maybe this is exactly what they needed.

JT grows more docile by the day, too. Obviously, Morgan can’t trust any of that shit, but it’s nice to dwell in the fantasy every now and then.

It’s just past noon and JT dozed off. The windows rattle gently. Jeff smokes, lazy himself.

He puts his cigarette between his lips so he can run his good hand through the kid’s hair, carefully pick it out of his eyes. The kid wakes, then, barely. His lashes flutter but he pretends to still be out.

The shared blanket covers him stomach-down. With his arms laying around and on him, that peaceful expression on his face, he looks young. Maybe too young if it weren’t for the dark hair flourishing in his armpits.

“You never ask to call her anymore.”

Kid blinks now.

“Your mom,” clarifies Morgan, smoke still pinched in his mouth. “You wanna call her?”

Jared’s eyes swim for a moment before they settle on Jeff’s. He shakes his head.

“Why not?”

Jared cat-stretches into a shrug like Jeff’s hand wasn’t still in his face.

~

His jeans hitting him in the face catch JT off guard.

“Get dressed. You’re helping JR with the horses today.”

Jared obliges, unsure—it’s unusual that Jeff’s already showered and not currently humping him like a dog in heat, first thing in the morning.

Yeah, Jeff isn’t a fan, but in his old age he’s starting to get a feeling for when enough is enough.

Wonder and the usual irritation battle with Ackles’ expression. “You’re early,” he blurts, boots coming off the table. “I haven’t started breakfast yet.”

“That’s fine. He’ll help.”

Jeff settles into his chair and grabs the radio. He turns it on and begins to roll his morning smokes, absently tapping his good foot, humming along to the crackling music. The wind makes itself known despite it all.

“He’ll do the horses with you, too. The boxes could use a good overall scrub, I figure.”

His leg burns something fierce. The pain makes a slow but steady run for his skull. T’was dumb not to bring the cane downstairs, but he’ll make it to the armchair later, when the boys are outside. He decides he won’t need to move farther than that today.

It’s a slow fucking day. The downstairs is filled up with smoke in no time. JR brought the thermos over to him, set it on the tiny windowsill. Jeff’s got his leg hoisted up and chews through the mug, his smokes, his nails. He’s sweating despite not moving at all, just staring out the window. Waiting it out.

_“And here’s a special song by Paula Cole and Peter Gabriel. To all the families and victims of that horrible epidemic sweeping the—”_

Jeff nearly drops his smoke he’s changing the station so quick.

It takes a while of uneasy static and cut-off pieces of music and voices until he finds an alternative. He sits back, frowning, scratching through his beard, his bad arm extended and pushing against the cramps.

~

Out of all the rooms, the living room had been the one Morgan had struggled with the most. The first couple of years, he just kept it empty. He couldn’t think of a reason to utilize it. If he wasn’t in his bedroom, he’d be outside; quick meals, quick showers. With his boys, things changed.

There’s the sofa, the armchair, the rug. The old TV Lenny had broken on his third day, years ago, still broken today but Morgan likes it sitting there, gutted with no screen. They had a similar one back home, same turning dials an’ all.

With the three of them crammed in here, part of Jeff’s rigged brain tells him it’s too much, too close, even though he’s with his back to the wall and just by the door, several feet away from them over there on the sofa.

The house groans wholeheartedly under each gust of the storm. It’s dark out. He told the boys to keep their boots on, just in case.

“You didn’t eat,” prompts JR, uninvited, and Jeff just sucks on his current smoke with emphasis. Maybe he grumbles something rude in return. He can’t think.

Kid keeps pressing, “You gotta eat,” subtly changes out of his sprawl now and folds his paperback where he’ll pick it up later. He begins to sit up. “How’s the leg?”

“None of your fucking business is what it is.”

“It’s just gonna get worse like that.” JR gets up and Jeff’s body stiffens further. “Here,” he says, extending his pristine right hand towards Jeff. “Lemme help you.”

Morgan’s eyes flicker to Jared who hasn’t looked up from his current carving project, who pretends he can’t hear or see and generally to not exist at all.

Morgan scoots further back into his armchair. Jensen gets a hold of his thigh before he removes the kitchen chair from underneath it so he can kneel in its place.

JT still isn’t looking.

Jensen untucks the empty pant leg to roll it up and over, to expose the remains of Morgan’s limb. JR sweeps his palm along the length of it, up and then down, while his left keeps it in place.

It hurts like a bitch. And it doesn’t get better at first. It never does until a couple of moments in. Until then, it’s worse.

JR soft-says, “Relax,” and Morgan wants to punch him; he almost does. His breath pushes out of him in acidic gushes through his flaring nostrils. Spots of white and black drizzle into his vision.

Morgan drops his head into his bad hand and squeezes his eyes closed.

He groans.

“Just another moment.” JR kneads, and kneads, and kneads. “Almost there.”

The thunderbolt flashes the farm back to bright daylight even behind Jeff’s closed lids.

It comes with a hiss before the thunder rolls in right along, too close, too booming.

Jeff hears JR screaming, “SHIT!” and feels him dropping his leg, and he’s drenched in cold sweat all of a sudden but whips his head around, eyes open, and sees the flaming tool shed through the window.

Jeff tries to get up, grips the armchair as hard as he can but the cane is upstairs and the boys have already bolted outside, JR’s voice fading with the banging of the door in the wind, bang—bang—bang, like someone cracking a whip right next to Jeff Morgan’s ears.

Jeff struggles to make his way along the armchair, the wall, but his good leg can only take so much and it betrays him so fucking instantly. Morgan hits the floor with his shoulder and he’s already by the door so he begins to crawl, gulps air like he’s drowning and he can smell the smoke now but he’s seeing doubles and his body won’t listen to him.

They’re hauling water, JR’s already got the hose going. Jeff’s shaking, completely immobile. JT hauls blankets from the horse barn and they’re working together, the two of them, and Jeff can’t do anything but lay there and watch with his neck stretched out like a turtle turned on its back.

He wants to scream—something, anything. They’re gonna die. The farm’s gonna go up in flames. Burning alive.

By the time he realizes they’ve got it under control, he’s ready to pass out. His head dunks to the floor. The storm is still howling and Morgan thinks he can hear the horses screaming. How scary it must be, not knowing what’s going on. The tears take him suddenly and completely. It hurts. His head is gonna explode. That sound—is that his voice?

“Fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ , hey, _hey_ , Jeff, you okay? Hey. Wake up, man, please. Jeff Morgan? God, don’t fuckin’ scare me like that.”

It’s Jen, must be Jen. Carries him upstairs, smelling like burnt wood and hair. Doesn’t undress him, just pulls the covers up and tucks him in and rushes, “It’s okay. We’re okay. The shed’s not burning anymore. You stay here, you’re safe, okay? Jay’s with the horses, imma go out and check for anything smoldering, yeah? You’re fine, Morgan. Stay here.”

Jeff feels Jensen’s hand sliding out of his own, and then the world dips back into blackness.

Some sleeps are like that—just nothing. No dreams, no time passing.

Jeff Morgan wakes with a violent gasp that rips him upright in his bed, fresh sweat puddled in every nook and cranny he has left.

It’s day out.

He grabs his cane and his leg and bolts downstairs, as far as bolting goes within his ability.

“You’re up,” says Jensen. He stands by the stove, two pots in front of him. He stirs with one of his bandaged hands and pops his cigarette between his lips with the other so he can grab one of the pots by its handle. “Hungry?”

Jeff takes a seat next to JT, who’s wide-eyed and smoking absently in front of a licked-clean plate. He holds his cup of coffee with both hands.

As JR loads up Jeff’s plate, Jeff tells JT, “Your eyebrows.” Kid blinks, confused, tired; neither of them seems to have showered yet.

“Oh. Yeah,” mutters the kid, his blistered-to-shit hand holding his cigarette coming up to feel for them. Upon finding nothing, he says, “Oh,” frowning for a sec before he deflates, shrugs.

“From my own stash, so don’t even start.” JR holds his cig in front of Morgan’s face for (much needed) clarification.

Jeff isn’t sure he’s not dreaming. Or dead. He frowns at his breakfast and grabs a nearby fork. “You fiddled with the damn radio again.”

“I’ll change it back.”

“No.” Morgan swats at empty air. “Nah, leave it.”

Morgan begins to eat. Jensen continues to cook. Padalecki silently sips his coffee while some female singer rejoices, _“Runaway with me, my love, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”_

~

Jared keeps his noises pinched away. He barely offers anything but baby-grunts or anything-but-hollow _uhn uhn uhns_. Jeff’s slowly but surely coming around to it. Everyone’s so different about that.

Jeff’s had boys that would whine even at the end of the summer. He prefers that but he’s also kind of sick in the head, so.

But Jared’s verging on that other type he likes best—the kind that gets into it.

So that’s nice, too.

JT makes an unwilling sound at Jeff’s arm hooking around his neck from behind. Jeff watches the increasing scarlet on that face and fucks him just a little harder, a little faster.

“You’re hard,” smiles Jeff, the animal.

Jared doesn’t reply with anything consisting of syllables.

He likes when they wince, when they limp. When they hesitate to bend down during chores. When they can’t look him in the eye afterwards and when they look him in the eye again, at some point.

“Y’know,” says Morgan as he re-buckles his belt. “You should be glad. Some faggots are into putting their whole arm up your ass.” Jared gives him a wary/horrified look. “You didn’t know?” Jared reluctantly shakes his quickly paling head. “Yeah, I know. Not my style either. Hey, Ackles.”

Jeff hollers out of the wide-open doors.

JR turns towards him and pauses in his wood chopping. “Yeah?”

“You had that done before though, didn’t ya?”

“What?”

Jeff performs a certain motion. “Getting some guy’s fist up your ass.”

JR doesn’t reply.

“Back in, what was it, Ohio? That dude with the…?” Another motion.

“Fuck off.”

Jeff turns back to JT, shrugging, re-handing him his shovel. In a stage-whisper, he confides, “She’s shy about it.”

JR had been insufferable for a while, but now his eyebrows are growing back, too. He drove into town to get a haircut and looks meaner than ever. He’s so tan he could be some Mexican’s off-grid bastard.

A confident JR is an uncomfortable JR but at least Jeff can let him close to the horses again.

“I could suck you off.”

“No, but no thanks.”

“You know I’m good at it,” reminds JR, propped on the box like an accessory. With the years, he has so painfully gotten out of place. A bull in a china shop.

Jeff keeps ignoring him, keeps brushing Billie.

After the little patience the kid’s blessed with, “He’s just a fucking _stick_. How d’you even get it up for a fucking _stick_ , Jeff.”

“Look, I’m humbled an’ all, but it ain’t happening.”

“I tested negative!” JR’s tall and up in his face now, a desperate twist to his entire body that makes him more reptile-ish, less human. Jeff doesn’t budge, but they lock eyes. “Negative means I ain’t got it.”

“You gimme that on paper signed by a doc and I might even consider you’re not fucking lying to my fucking face.”

“Fuck you!” JR kicks the water bucket and sends it across the box. Billie bucks in sudden panic.

Jeff only raises his voice with a, “HEY,” when Billie gets a left hook to his eye.

“SO WHAT if you get it?! You’re ALREADY dead!” shouts JR. “Look at you, fucking boarded up in here in the middle of fucking NOWHERE! You call that ‘ALIVE’?! Fuckin’ pathetic, fuckin’ PEDOPHILE, fuckin’ little KIDS in the ass! You’re nothing but DIRT!”

Spit hits Jeff’s eye.

With a raised finger, JR repeats, “You’re already _dead_ , old man,” and storms outside.

Jeff struggles to calm Billie, pets him, shushes him. “It’s okay, big boy, it’s okay.”

Billie splutters in violent disbelief.

~

Jeff’s ears aren’t what they used to be (like a lot of things), but certain words can be whispered during a lightning storm and he’ll pick it up.

A rough selection would be: grenade, bomb, cripple, fire, cover, faggot.

Across the yard, JR hisses, “Stop being such a _sissy_ , for fuck’s sake.”

Jeff Morgan’s head turns so he can watch through the window. He’s taking it slow with his bad leg not feeling too great and with the boys handling the rebuild of the shed pretty okay on their own anyway. Or so he thought.

Padalecki is still whacking the nails, but he’s not yapping.

“You can’t do anything right, can you?” JR stands close, arms crossed. Jeff can’t see his face from here.

Jeff keeps the book in his hand, forgotten.

“My little sister could do better and she’s a fucking retard. Or is that what you are, a retard? A little girl?” Maybe Jared mutters a reply because Jensen pipes up, “What was that? I didn’t fucking hear you, Polack.”

JT repeats, “No,” and Jensen Ross backhands him, hard.

“Then fucking act like it.”

Jeff watches JT flinching, crumbling—continuing his task, even if reluctantly.

“That’s why he does it to you. ’Cause you’re a fuckin’ little girl. He calls you a girl while he does it, doesn’t he? With your fuckin’ hair an’ shit. What even _is_ that?” Jared falters in his moves as he is grabbed by his hair, as his head snaps back upon the yank. “It’s your own fault, looking like that,” decides Jensen, dismissing the kid’s head. “I should do you a favor and shave it off. He’d let me do that to you. Fuckin’ cut it all off. But he’d still fuck your ass. Because that’s all you’re good for, apparently. Keep fucking workin’, imma get some water. Yeah, don’t fuckin’ look at me like that, you know I’m right. Fuckin’ faggot.”

Jeff pretends to read while JR slips into the house, to the sink. JR drinks straight from the tap, doesn’t speak, doesn’t touch, doesn’t address. He leaves the house to re-join Jared and the shed in progress.


	5. Chapter 5

The no-drugs rule had been there before Jensen, and it had made sense before him, too. None of the troubled youth Morgan’s encountered hadn’t at least fucked around with one or the other substance by the time they got tossed towards him, and his own battered organs are very silently very pleased that he keeps himself off the bottle in the process.

And while JR swears up and down that no, his tobacco isn’t laced, and no, he didn’t bring any-fucking-thing, Jeff gets instantly and unfailingly wife-y and piss-y seeing him smoke, or seeing him coming from his truck with empty hands.

It’s something he never managed to beat out of the kid. A brand of his failure.

Morgan still hasn’t mustered the balls to go near, let alone _search_ that damn vehicle.

JR’s so deep in (and always has been) that Jeff doesn’t get his clues. Maybe he doesn’t have any, or maybe he’s even more clever than Jeff deems him. Jensen Ross is a master at hiding every-fucking-thing.

If JR’s moods depend on anything, it’s Jeff Morgan, not any chemical roaring through his slowly dying body.

If Jeff’s fine, JR’s usually not fine. It used to be different, because it used to be JR being the source of Jeff being fine.

They’ve been doing great with the shed, so Jeff’s allowed them to take the radio. The heat becomes unbearable inside the house these days, so Jeff’s migrated to the shadows by the barn. Another plus is the clear view of his foster (and the leech), topless, working, not fazed by his presence or stares in any way. (Needless to say, this last bit only applies to the foster.)

They (JR) picked a fucked-up station but Jeff’s already got a raging headache anyway, so he doesn’t mind the shrill ad-intermissions or the too-electrical, too-foreign songs. Jeff’s taste in music lived and died in the sixties.

_Hiss—glug, glug—“Ahhh.”—“Always Coca Cola.”_

Jared groans deep and thirsty under his breath. “God. I miss soda.”

“Well, and I miss not hearing you bitching.”

“C’mon, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t die for an ice-cold Coke right now.”

The next song starts up. Jensen snorts as he gains momentum for his next hammer strike. “Yeah, I’d die for some coke right now.”

“Jeff, uh, sir,” Jared hollers, “can you bring some soda when you drive into town next time?”

Jeff flips the page of his current read. “Absolutely not.”

“Aw, c’mon.” The kid whines, because he’s clever and Jeff’s a degenerate. “Please? We’ve been working so hard. We, like, totally earned a reward.”

Jeff squints behind his shades, but smirks. “I think you forgot where the fuck you are, boy.”

JR slams the current nail with emphasis. “Yup; all rape, no fun.”

Jared makes a last weak protest before he gives up like a good boy.

As the hours crawl by and Jeff Morgan’s brain stews in his thick goddamned head, he has to admit that yeah, they’re really working hard and that yeah, maybe they do deserve a reward. But for one, they already got the radio, and two, Morgan’s no piggy-bank on one and a half legs—and three: life is bleak and harsh and he doesn’t think anyone should fall into the cruel deception that for them, it might make an exception.

JR takes a break to peel one lonely, loose cigarette from the pocket of his too-tight-to-be-on-a-man jeans and begins to mosey over to Jeff. Mainly for the attention, not the lighter.

Jeff’s feeling generous and lights the thing with it dangling from Jensen Ross’ puckered honey trap mouth.

“Thanks,” smiles the kid, sun-damaged and bulked with muscle. He leaves Jeff behind without a flinch.

Humans just aren’t supposed to look like that.

A few drags and the hammer stays down. Lost in thought, Jeff’s eyes stay on Jensen now, who begins to sway, tap his foot, nod his head—to the music, Jeff figures.

It should be weird for Jensen to just start dancing but it truly, really isn’t.

Jeff might’ve scored sunstroke. He’s too lazy to consider it.

The heat is dying down together with the sun. A bright strip of orange-pink layers onto everything the shadows haven’t already gulped down, and Jensen’s movements seem otherworldly. Out of place, a timeless, endless string of motions. It might not even be a dance at all.

Jensen Ross’ eyes slip closed, and as they do, he smiles.

It’s such a rare sight that Jeff now is very convinced he’s hallucinating all of it.

Vocals emerge to Morgan’s ears with a soft male voice soothing, _“If that's love in your eyes, it's more than enough,”_ but it’s all just a blur in the static rhythm of the song and Jensen’s body.

Jensen’s lips move to, _“Some fast love, is all that I've got on my mind,”_ and Jeff Morgan’s chest sighs with something he’ll never make sense of, ever.

~

There’s a weak glimpse of the kid who had arrived here four weeks ago, seated at Jeff Morgan’s table. That ignorant face, the lack of awareness about the situation he’s gotten—no, _maneuvered_ himself into. Jeff never knows if he should feel disappointed or proud about them.

“I just wanted a smoke,” says JT.

“Oh, because that’s gonna make it okay or something?”

“I wasn’t gonna run away.”

Neither JR nor Morgan reply.

Jared adds, “Honest.”

Jeff has fondled his beard long enough. He sighs the deep breath of a parent who’s been in it for too long to still feel pity. “Alright,” he says, and gets up. “Come with me, both of ya.”

Jeff flicks at the switch by the door in the narrow corridor and gets his keys out.

Dread layers over the scene. It slips off Morgan and he leaves it behind as he descends the too-slim staircase that leads into the cellar.

They follow, only because Jensen’s in the rear and Jared has nowhere else to go but forward.

Honestly, Jensen deserves a reprimand himself, being stupid enough to let the kid get at the keys.

So Jeff tells him, “Jensen,” turns to say that before he unlocks another door. “Would you be so kind, please.”

Jeff Morgan takes extra time to get this last door open, just because he’s such a soft-hearted bastard.

Jensen Ross barely hesitates, you have to give him that.

Jeff focuses solely on Jared, whose nerves stretch remarkably thinner at the sight of JR in the room. Quietly, Jeff tells him, “Stealing is a big no-no, Jay-bird.”

He doesn’t have to look to see it. Jensen’s gotten so big, his shoulders must be touching the walls.

“And keys, too.” Morgan tuts. “You gotta understand, I can’t let these things slide. And this,” his right hand pats the doorframe, “this is where you go when I need you to under _stand_ something, Jared.”

Jared’s eyes are on Jeff now, small but wide. His hands look cold as they hang uselessly by his sides.

“I won’t do it again.”

“You see how I can’t trust a word you say right now, don’t you? You can come out of there now, Ackles.”

“Yessir.”

“You see, Jensen Ross here,” Jeff gets a hold of JR’s shoulder, pulls him back towards him, closer to the still-open door, “he’s spent _a lot_ of time in there. Didn’t you, boy?”

Jensen says, “Yessir.”

“And see how _that_ worked out! He’s so tame, he eats from my bare hand! Now, I’m not saying I want you to love me _that_ much—truly, I don’t, but! You know, a little respect—that goes a long way out here. You catch my drift, Jared?”

“Yessir.”

“Ah, delightful. Just delightful. Okay, I’m starting to feel good about this whole thing again. So, what do you say—no room time for you this time, but you fuck me over again just once, Jay, one teensy-tiny disrespect, and you’re not getting out of there for a nice, wholesome forty-eight hours. How’s that sound to you, champ?”

“Yeah, yessir. Yes. Thank you, sir.”

Jeff beams at JR, still wedged under his arm. “You hear that? Isn’t that wonderful? He’s like a whole new man!”

JR grits, “Sir.”

“Yeah, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t think it’s right that he ain’t gonna get a punishment, like, at all.”

“Oh,” Jeff laughs. “I don’t care what _you_ do with him. This is just between,” he smiles over at Jared, pointing back and forth the two of them. He claps Jensen between his shoulder blades. “I mean, it’s your truck. You two have your little chat,” Jeff folds JR’s hand around the keys, “and imma get me some coffee. Air down here sure does make you thirsty.”

Jeff makes his way upstairs and pulls the door closed behind him.

He still hears the cries.

He boils some water and sends some brainwaves to Jensen to remind him that he trusts him just enough not to entirely overdo it.

~

The keys land on the kitchen table with a thick jingle.

JR states, superfluously, “I’m done,” and heads straight out the front door.

Jeff slurps some more coffee before Jared eventually limps into view.

Jeff winces. “Oh, angel.”

Gone is Jared’s mop of hair. Just frays of it here and there, some cuts where the wherever-he-got-that-from knife scraped ugly. Jared is quaking, complete with big fat tears running down the cuts and bruises covering his face.

Jeff hisses and cups JT’s chin to inspect him better.

Cuts don’t look knife-like.

“H-he p-punched m-m-me,” sobs the kid, “w-with, with the. In his.”

Ouch. Yeah. “Poor thing. I mean, you deserve it, but you know I can’t see you cry like that. Here, drink some good ol’ joe while I fetch you some iodine.”

Jeff’ll have to hand this one back sooner than all of that will fade. Jensen should know better than to go for the goddamn face.

But Jeff enabled this. And if he wouldn’t have, it would have ended much, much worse.

At this point, he owes Jensen Ross enough already.

~

Things have been tense and Jared’s been constipated so Morgan decided for a good horseback riding, the three of them, together. The weather is being semi-nice to them.

Just the desert. He points westward.

“You see that hill over there? One’a you made it there. So dehydrated when I found him I couldn’t be angry with him for days. Ah, Richie. You dumbass motherfucker.”

They have a sparse lunch in the generous shadow a rock overhang provides them with. JT’s black eye is healing slow. He eats gingerly.

Into the general silence, the kid inquires, “What happened to Richie?”

Morgan raises his eyebrows, shrugs, chews. “Same that happens to every one of my boys. Once summer’s over, they leave.”

“So he made it?”

“’Course he made it.” Morgan scoffs, father-proud. “Ain’t no one leaving Jeff Morgan’s farm in a coffin.”

JR pipes in. “Yeah, ’cause once you leave this place it’s like you never existed, so he doesn’t give a flying fuck about you. Or what happens to you, after.”

Morgan tilts his head, glares. “Why’d you gotta be like that, angel?”

“Don’t ‘angel’ me.” JR directs his cold eyes at Jared now, specifically, who went from eating to clutching his sandwich. “He doesn’t care. He never does.”

Morgan’s eyes roll, and he picks up where he left off with his food.

It’s a very, very quiet afternoon.

~

“How many you think he’s had? Before us?”

“Dunno. A dozen, maybe?”

Jeff smiles like any other too-fat dog. The barn door and the boys’ noisy efforts give him cover.

“A dozen? Not more?”

“Man, I don’t know.”

“He’s old, though, shouldn’t it be more?”

“He hasn’t been out here all his life, dumbass. I think, like, twenty years, but he didn’t start this boot camp crap up until a few years later.”

Morgan can only hear one shovel working.

“It’s so fucked up,” says JT. “That he didn’t get busted yet.”

“Well—you gonna waltz into a police station, tell them how some ass-old cripple raped you over and over, and you let that happen for weeks?” Silence. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

“But you came back,” hears Jeff, mindlessly toying with a cigarette.

“I guess.”

“Several times. He said that.”

“The old man talks as much as the days are long.”

“Why’d you come back? I don’t get it.”

“Look, if you don’t pick up that shovel right the fuck now, I’ll jam it so far up your ass he’ll have to fish it out through your goddamn mouth.”

Two shovels work. Jeff smiles.

~

“What was he like? When he came here.”

“Hm.” Jeff blinks towards the ceiling, puffs some more smoke. His bad hand lies on his naked, hairy chest. “He wouldn’t want me to tell you that.”

“I’m just trying to understand.”

“Which might be why he doesn’t want you to know.”

“He loves this place.”

Jeff snorts. “If you say so.”

“Well, why else would he come back every year?”

“You ever figured it could have something to do with my natural charms?”

Jeff chuckles for the face that goes with that shrug.

“I just… I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“He killed your _dog_ and you let him walk.”

“Bullshit.”

J. Ross, naked feet on blind search for a shin, under the covers.

J. Ross, in the shed for three days, no ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’; spitting his own blood onto Jeff’s boot and smiling because he won the hunger strike.

Jeff finally grumbles, “There’s so many issues I have with Jensen Ross Ackles, Bisou doesn’t even make the top three.”

~

There’s a longing in JT’s entire being the closer D Day is inching.

Jeff’s keeping a strict eye out whenever Bonnie gets her saddle and her hundred pounds wet set atop of her. JT’s constantly scanning the horizon.

The bruises fade slow, too slow. If he hadn’t listened in and heard what he heard, Jeff Morgan would be confident that the kid’ll just find a lame excuse in case anyone even musters enough interest to ask.

Even if he blabbered, who would believe him? It doesn’t make sense. There is no written record. They’d have to find all the others—how? It’s been so many years.

Maybe the boys forgot about him entirely, anyway. Changed their names. Have families now. Killed themselves, _got_ killed. Are cops or soldiers or hermits. Morgan doesn’t know these things, nor has he ever longed to do so.

Morgan applies his faithful arnica cream to Jay’s facial wounds before he makes him bend over the edge of his bed.

~

JT’s figurines line the chimney breast. An odd assortment, from oldest to newest. JT didn’t ask if he could put them there. Jeff hasn’t been pissed off enough to say something.

There’s weapons and—what Morgan vaguely recognizes as monsters from movie posters he’s seen, flashes of ads that flickered in the short span he’d been at the shop. Two cars. A dog.

JT catches him staring at the line-up.

“Can I take them with me? When I leave?” he asks, the scared, small child.

“Of course,” Jeff says, squinting with irritation. “They’re yours, aren’t they?”

~

JR slips into the room like an accustomed ghost. Jeff watches him rounding the bed to get to Jared’s side, and how could he miss the excitement in the kid’s face.

This wasn’t planned. But Jeff blames his softer sides, his damned curiosity, because he doesn’t interfere.

Jeff sits back some more, cushioned well.

Jared begins, “Whu—” but JR’s slow, deliberate movements have him spellbound and silent soon enough.

JR keeps his eyes locked on the kid as he begins to strip out of his clothes.

The room is so quiet Jeff hears Jared swallowing.

The lone lamp on the nightstand exaggerates Jensen Ross’ beauty to a point it’s painful to see. He moves so fluidly, so gently like you would imagine a woman doing it. The mere gesture he uses to push the sheets off Jared, or how he sinks down on the bed. A goddamn siren.

Jared is frozen, the poor fool. His body reacts instantly, a dog on command, and Jeff would be amused if it wasn’t so damn beautiful to watch.

Jensen folds his legs under himself and lowers just enough to give Jared the incentive to try and get a hold of his hips before he curls right up, away, and crawls further down—the body, and the bed.

Jeff’s gotta sneer at the hitch in the kid’s breath at getting his navel kissed. At the view Jensen is giving them, sleek like a cat.

Jeff gets the shortest blink of eye contact JR requires to see if he’s doing good. He then, under Jared’s exasperated sigh, buries his face in the boy’s lap.

Jared gasps, “Oh my god,” and Jensen lets him grab his hair, lets him try and force him to do what he’s doing anyway—tongue out, he’s kissing, smothering his way to the tip to angle it right so he can swallow the whole damn thing down.

Whatever Jared is trying to say, it doesn’t come out right. Shaking, he’s holding on, overwhelmed and his chicken-chest heaving.

He downright sobs on the pull-out.

“Oh my god, oh my god, please, please—”

What begins is a tug-o-war Jared doesn’t realize he’s the only competitor in. Jensen, smooth and goddamn slick Jensen, he’s moving on his own as much as Jared is trying to push-pull him by his hair, and it’s a thing of beauty. Calm, in-control JR who doesn’t tire of keeping his eyes open and available for Jared, and Jared with his sore ass coming off the bed in an effort to plunge even further down the bliss that is a warm, wet hole.

Jeff scoots closer and Jared doesn’t even mind.

Jeff layers his good hand over Jared’s, over JR’s halo of blond. They push down together, and the change in JR is immediate. JR’s always made an effort to be as soft and docile for Jeff as not-humanly possible.

Those eyes slip closed because Jeff keeps the pressure constant. He’d let Jeff suffocate him on this random teenager’s dick and not bat an eye.

JT’s blabbering nonsense, buried deeper than any high school flirt or fiancé or wife would let him. Which he doesn’t know yet. There’s unfortunately no coming back from J. R. Ackles.

They let him up, wet-eyed but no true tears. Jeff guides the kid to bob JR up and down. JR’s the single most person Jeff’s met who’s happiest just being used.

“That’s it,” he praises, ramped up himself all over again now—moved, that JR would really go this low for him.

JR’s eyes are exclusively on him now, once more, as always.

Jeff licks his lip, distracted.

“Hands and knees. Now. No, not you.”

Jared looks confused.

Jeff says, “Him,” and JR’s scrambled himself together in the mere blink of an eye.

It takes a moment for Jeff to balance it out on his stump. There’s a tremble to JR’s endless back, mountains of freckled muscle and he’s as good as hairless. You can’t make that shit up, and Jeff really hates the irony of all of it.

“I figured,” murmurs Jeff, drunk with the effortless slide of two of his fingers right into JR’s pre-lubed ass, “since you fucked him and I fucked him, it’s no use anyway.”

JR grumbles, “Fucking do it,” and pushes back up against Jeff, soft skin up against Jeff’s hips and Jeff scoffs, adds another finger and angles his arm nice.

There’s a tangible shift. No preamble; they hadn’t needed that ever.

“Yeah, this still works fine for you, doesn’t it.”

JR musters a weak approval and curls his hips out further, deeper.

“Didn’t break you yet, did they?” and JR small-boy hushes, “Mh-mh,” and as Jeff switches fingers for cock, he thinks he might get JR crying after all.

Stunned silence from all parties ensues, and Jeff regrets his choice.

It’s too much. Memories and past times and his heart is too old, too broken for this.

He meets JT’s eyes, wide and curious from below JR’s shoulder. JR is a stretched line, collapsed around the head. Jeff’s got both hands on his hips and the slightest squeeze has JR humping. It’s heaven, like coming home after being gone for too long, and Jeff can’t take it.

“What are you waiting for,” he not-asks, push-shoves JR forwards and his hips down, clapping at JT’s thigh. “Get in there, am I gonna have to ask twice?”

JR’s head whips around and there’s nothing but betrayed, utter pain.

Jeff can’t. “Yeah, exactly, c’mon, like…”

It’s painfully easy to get Jay’s cock in alongside his own, and the sensation is blinding. A collective groan and shudder goes through them; Jeff feels it like they’re all the same, can swear he tastes the pain and the bliss and the heat, and JT’s shocked little huff, the timid jabs of his unschooled hips, just.

God.

They bounce JR’s body back and forth between them, working up to a frenzy and there’s a lot of sweat very soon. JR won’t look back at him anymore and Jeff just closes his eyes. Float, empty, let go.

Jared of course doesn’t last long. It’s a good excuse for Morgan whose knee is acting up at this point and he feels nauseous (a cruel thought: love-sick).

The pull-out is messy and Jensen Ross looks barely used nonetheless. Like this wasn’t even worth breaking a sweat.

He doesn’t ask if Jeff’s done and he just climbs off the bed to gather his clothes where he dropped them mere minutes ago, and he clutches them and he leaves the room.

Jeff clears his throat, lights a smoke, his back to the door and Jared confused but quiet on his back, still breathing heavy. He hears the door to the boys’ room and puts his head into his bad hand.

~

JR brought his scars here. Blatant with how tired of hiding he was, as if he had deemed Morgan a Safe Man. Didn’t flinch or duck like others would have, and Jeff first accredited the drugs. But JR would complain and rampage like every other of his boys, so obviously he couldn’t be _numb_. Just seemed to keep to himself. As if hiding something, from Jeff, maybe the rest of the world. Jeff, naturally, he was drawn to that.

Quiet boys. Told off and damaged and left with themselves, and everything about them is a weakness. Filled with too much for them to handle—the kind who needs Jeff nearly as much as he needs them.

JR wouldn’t pull away from touches, neither would he lean into them. Unreachable, like nothing meant anything; not really.

That first time, in that tiny twin-bed in the boys’ room, too-tall for his age Jensen was as mute and cold as a fish. Didn’t fight (or maybe tried not to) this stranger, let him do whatever he wanted. With gritted teeth, but still.

With Jensen Ross, nothing Jeff ever did had felt like a lie. No need for play-pretends into either worse or better directions. Living with this boy had felt like stepping into body-warm waters.

He saw Morgan for what he was, it seemed, and accepted.

There’s a new shade to Jensen Ross, in this morning light. It’s a long-forgotten sadness, or a stray mutation of it—that boy that didn’t know better, who still thought things could be different.

Jeff inquires, “What’s for breakfast?” and Jensen puts it in front of him without another word, and he leaves without having his own share.

Jared joins him at the table soon enough. It takes a moment for him to realize how one piggie is missing.

Jay’s the kind of kid that adapts to everyone around them, and out here, he’s with the horses. So Jeff accredits the nervous twitch in him to that, and ignores the sour taste at the back of his mouth.

“Where’s he?”

“Left, just now.”

“Where’s he going?”

“How the fuck would I know. Eat.”

“But weren’t we supposed to—”

“Padalecki, _eat_.”

Jared does, and they take turns glancing through the window.

~

Clyde is missing, but the initial drop of Morgan’s stomach gets soothed soon enough by a vague silhouette out on the paddock.

Jeff takes his time walking up to the two, but once he’s in earshot all he gets is a soft, “Leave.”

“Now don’t be like that,” he hums, smile-y, gently.

“I want you to leave me alone.”

Jeff stops, hands behind his back, smiling. He cocks his hip, sighs, looks around. “It’s a nice day out.”

JR keeps combing Clyde in silence.

“We could ride out. Just you an’ me. He’ll be fine for half a day.”

Clyde’s mane ripples. He splutters.

Jeff narrows his eyes. His smile grows a little thinner. “What do you say, champ?”

JR gathers the tools he brought out, grabs Clyde’s reins and guides him around Jeff in a generous circle to trot back towards the stable.

Jeff keeps standing in his spot, abandoned, and raises his head up to the sky with a deep sigh.

~

Jared’s hair is getting long enough that he doesn’t have to keep a hat on all day. It makes him look older though. His bones pick and poke for air, and there’s a set to his mouth and jaw Jeff had hoped he’d gain out here. The mothers usually gasp with delight, or at least bite a short-sylabbled comment about their offspring’s changed physique, the deep, deep tan. If Jay’s mom is even gonna come out here. Maybe Jeff’ll see Padalecki-Jeff again.

“I’m done,” says JT, topless, dirt-smeared. His muscles fight for space under his browned skin.

Jeff mutters, “Okay,” and fiddles with his thoughts. His brain is giving him a hard time. He’s been smelling gunpowder all day now. “Just, uh. I guess rest up. I’ll call you if I can think of anything.”

Jared says, “Alright,” and leaves for the house, and doesn’t add the ‘sir’ like he’s supposed to, but he never grew into it, not really, and Jeff likes how he turned out otherwise, so he won’t start picking at that now.

Wind gusts blow across the empty yard. Jared and the broom barely left any dust to dance, so all that remains for Jeff is the touch of it on his face, his bare arms.

Time stretches. Jeff sweats. He doesn’t feel good.

In an attempt to save himself from the sun, he ducks into the makeshift garage—a mere den, held together by old planks of wood. He’s been waiting for it to collapse anytime now, but it’s been holding out for years. Some things just won’t die.

He circles Jensen’s truck. Dust clings to it after weeks of it just sitting here, but you can tell it’s brand new. The siren-red paint job. The huge, silver rims on the gigantic wheels.

Jeff peeks inside. The seats are empty, clean. They look comfortable, still bouncy instead of sat-in. Two CD cases are crammed into the little holder space by the stereo. A yellow tree-shaped air freshener is strung from the rearview.

It’s a foreign view. It doesn’t belong here. It doesn’t belong with Jensen Ross.

It’s part of a world outside of Jeff Morgan’s reach—a world neither him nor Ackles are welcome in. A world where people function, can go to work, make a living, make enough money to buy cars like this. Ride around towns full of people to show off. Get a dog, a crate for it the bed so you can take it to the beach with you.

Jeff tries the canopy. It is locked.

As he scoffs is when the gunshot comes so sudden that, for a blessed second or two, Morgan believes he hallucinated it.

Then, he runs.

It’s a miracle he makes it upstairs without stumbling. It doesn’t surprise him he can’t feel anything yet. Pain, nausea, that’s for when the adrenaline fades and the stress settles in, for every night of the rest of your life, the replay of these same minutes over and over again.

He sees the blood before he can see where it came from, and what’s left of Jared’s head.

The unnatural slackness and disarray of the limbs, that’s what gets you. Everything’s so off until you understand they’re not breathing.

Jared is facing away from the door, from Jeff.

Everything in Jeff Morgan stirs with the next shot, as far away as it is, and he can’t place why it would be there at all—until the shot becomes a succession of shots. And he understands, then, and the reaction in him is so immediate he can feel himself tearing. It’s such an abrupt sensation. A bomb falling. A grenade going off.

The shots keep coming, and he lost his chance to count.

Again, he runs. Downstairs, outside.

His hearing won’t tune out, won’t let him have this peace, no, it tortures with precision and he’s screaming, he thinks; _loud_ , burning lungs and he is gonna go insane. He is. Already is, maybe. The pain is unplaceable, unbearable.

He hasn’t made it to the barn by the time the shots stop, or by the time JR steps back out of there, shotgun in hand, and he closes the door behind him like he’ll be right back, like nothing even happened—and Jeff, he thinks how absurd it is that he notices these little things, those meaningless, cruel details now burnt into his ragged memory forever.

JR’s face is motionless as he looks straight at Jeffrey who can’t say or think anything, who is embarrassingly unarmed and who is so broken his brain apparently can’t even short-circuit anymore at the sight of the gun raising, cocking and being fired, pointed at him.

The pain doesn’t register until Morgan hits the ground after what feels like a lifetime of collapsing, of falling.

When the pain _does_ register, Morgan screams.

He’s curling to cup what the gun left of his good knee and his goddamn hearing is vicious enough to pick up how JR reloads while walking up to him.

Morgan is fire from his toes to the roots of his hair. Swallowing more dirt than air, he is painfully aware that this is it. This is how you’re gonna die. Out here, in the dirt. Put out of your misery like a dog. Like the animal you are.

You’re gonna bleed out; already are. You deserve this—you, not the boy, not the horses. God, they won’t find him until weeks later, rotten and maggot-warm with his eyes long eaten away, the animals bloated or already burst, flies, _God_ , nothing will be alive but the flies.

“Why them,” he babbles, garbled by tears and the shake of every muscle he has left. “God—God, Jensen, why them?! Why _THEM_?!”

The next blow takes off Jeff’s left hand.

Jensen reloads and raises the barrel underneath his own chin.

JR says, “I didn’t want them to suffer.”

As they lock eyes, JR looks as sober as Jeff ever saw him be, and pulls the trigger.


End file.
